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@@ -0,0 +1,6859 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, Worldly Ways and Byways, by Eliot Gregory + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: Worldly Ways and Byways + + +Author: Eliot Gregory + + + +Release Date: April 5, 2007 [eBook #379] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WORLDLY WAYS AND BYWAYS*** + + + + +Transcribed from the 1899 Charles Scribner's Sons edition by David Price, +email ccx074@pglaf.org + + + + + +Worldly +Ways +& +Byways + + +BY +Eliot Gregory +("_An Idler_") + +NEW YORK +_Charles Scribner's Sons_ +MDCCCXCIX + +_Copyright_, 1898, _by_ +_Charles Scribner's Sons_ + +To +_E. L. Godkin, Esqre_. + +SIR: + +I wish your name to appear on the first page of a volume, the composition +of which was suggested by you. + +Gratitude is said to be "the hope of favors to come;" these lines are +written to prove that it may be the appreciation of kindnesses received. + +_Heartily yours_ +_Eliot Gregory_ + + + + +A Table of Contents + + +_To the R E A D E R_ + +1. Charm + +2. The Moth and the Star + +3. Contrasted Travelling + +4. The Outer and the Inner Woman + +5. On Some Gilded Misalliances + +6. The Complacency of Mediocrity + +7. The Discontent of Talent + +8. Slouch + +9. Social Suggestion + +10. Bohemia + +11. Social Exiles + +12. "Seven Ages" of Furniture + +13. Our Elite and Public Life + +14. The Small Summer Hotel + +15. A False Start + +16. A Holy Land + +17. Royalty at Play + +18. A Rock Ahead + +19. The Grand Prix + +20. "The Treadmill" + +21. "Like Master Like Man" + +22. An English Invasion of the Riviera + +23. A Common Weakness + +24. Changing Paris + +25. Contentment + +26. The Climber + +27. The Last of the Dandies + +28. A Nation on the Wing + +29. Husks + +30. The Faubourg St. Germain + +31. Men's Manners + +32. An Ideal Hostess + +33. The Introducer + +34. A Question and an Answer + +35. Living on Your Friends + +36. American Society in Italy + +37. The Newport of the Past + +38. A Conquest of Europe + +39. A Race of Slaves + +40. Introspection + + + + +To the Reader + + +There existed formerly, in diplomatic circles, a curious custom, since +fallen into disuse, entitled the Pele Mele, contrived doubtless by some +distracted Master of Ceremonies to quell the endless jealousies and +quarrels for precedence between courtiers and diplomatists of contending +pretensions. Under this rule no rank was recognized, each person being +allowed at banquet, fete, or other public ceremony only such place as he +had been ingenious or fortunate enough to obtain. + +Any one wishing to form an idea of the confusion that ensued, of the +intrigues and expedients resorted to, not only in procuring prominent +places, but also in ensuring the integrity of the Pele Mele, should +glance over the amusing memoirs of M. de Segur. + +The aspiring nobles and ambassadors, harassed by this constant +preoccupation, had little time or inclination left for any serious +pursuit, since, to take a moment's repose or an hour's breathing space +was to risk falling behind in the endless and aimless race. Strange as +it may appear, the knowledge that they owed place and preferment more to +chance or intrigue than to any personal merit or inherited right, instead +of lessening the value of the prizes for which all were striving, seemed +only to enhance them in the eyes of the competitors. + +Success was the unique standard by which they gauged their fellows. Those +who succeeded revelled in the adulation of their friends, but when any +one failed, the fickle crowd passed him by to bow at more fortunate feet. + +No better picture could be found of the "world" of to-day, a perpetual +Pele Mele, where such advantages only are conceded as we have been +sufficiently enterprising to obtain, and are strong or clever enough to +keep--a constant competition, a daily steeplechase, favorable to daring +spirits and personal initiative but with the defect of keeping frail +humanity ever on the qui vive. + +Philosophers tell us, that we should seek happiness only in the calm of +our own minds, not allowing external conditions or the opinions of others +to influence our ways. This lofty detachment from environment is +achieved by very few. Indeed, the philosophers themselves (who may be +said to have invented the art of "posing") were generally as vain as +peacocks, profoundly pre-occupied with the verdict of their +contemporaries and their position as regards posterity. + +Man is born gregarious and remains all his life a herding animal. As one +keen observer has written, "So great is man's horror of being alone that +he will seek the society of those he neither likes nor respects sooner +than be left to his own." The laws and conventions that govern men's +intercourse have, therefore, formed a tempting subject for the writers of +all ages. Some have labored hoping to reform their generation, others +have written to offer solutions for life's many problems. + +Beaumarchais, whose penetrating wit left few subjects untouched, makes +his Figaro put the subject aside with "Je me presse de rire de tout, de +peur d'etre oblige d'en pleurer." + +The author of this little volume pretends to settle no disputes, aims at +inaugurating no reforms. He has lightly touched on passing topics and +jotted down, "to point a moral or adorn a tale," some of the more obvious +foibles and inconsistencies of our American ways. If a stray bit of +philosophy has here and there slipped in between the lines, it is mostly +of the laughing "school," and used more in banter than in blame. + +This much abused "world" is a fairly agreeable place if you do not take +it seriously. Meet it with a friendly face and it will smile gayly back +at you, but do not ask of it what it cannot give, or attribute to its +verdicts more importance than they deserve. + +ELIOT GREGORY + +_Newport_, _November first_, 1897 + + + + +No. 1--Charm + + +Women endowed by nature with the indescribable quality we call "charm" +(for want of a better word), are the supreme development of a perfected +race, the last word, as it were, of civilization; the flower of their +kind, crowning centuries of growing refinement and cultivation. Other +women may unite a thousand brilliant qualities, and attractive +attributes, may be beautiful as Astarte or witty as Madame de Montespan, +those endowed with the power of charm, have in all ages and under every +sky, held undisputed rule over the hearts of their generation. + +When we look at the portraits of the enchantresses whom history tells us +have ruled the world by their charm, and swayed the destinies of empires +at their fancy, we are astonished to find that they have rarely been +beautiful. From Cleopatra or Mary of Scotland down to Lola Montez, the +tell-tale coin or canvas reveals the same marvellous fact. We wonder how +these women attained such influence over the men of their day, their +husbands or lovers. We would do better to look around us, or inward, and +observe what is passing in our own hearts. + +Pause, reader mine, a moment and reflect. Who has held the first place +in your thoughts, filled your soul, and influenced your life? Was she +the most beautiful of your acquaintances, the radiant vision that dazzled +your boyish eyes? Has she not rather been some gentle, quiet woman whom +you hardly noticed the first time your paths crossed, but who gradually +grew to be a part of your life--to whom you instinctively turned for +consolation in moments of discouragement, for counsel in your +difficulties, and whose welcome was the bright moment in your day, looked +forward to through long hours of toil and worry? + +In the hurly-burly of life we lose sight of so many things our fathers +and mothers clung to, and have drifted so far away from their gentle +customs and simple, home-loving habits, that one wonders what impression +our society would make on a woman of a century ago, could she by some +spell be dropped into the swing of modern days. The good soul would be +apt to find it rather a far cry from the quiet pleasures of her youth, to +"a ladies' amateur bicycle race" that formed the attraction recently at a +summer resort. + +That we should have come to think it natural and proper for a young wife +and mother to pass her mornings at golf, lunching at the club-house to +"save time," returning home only for a hurried change of toilet to start +again on a bicycle or for a round of calls, an occupation that will leave +her just the half-hour necessary to slip into a dinner gown, and then for +her to pass the evening in dancing or at the card-table, shows, when one +takes the time to think of it, how unconsciously we have changed, and +(with all apologies to the gay hostesses and graceful athletes of to-day) +not for the better. + +It is just in the subtle quality of charm that the women of the last ten +years have fallen away from their elder sisters. They have been carried +along by a love of sport, and by the set of fashion's tide, not stopping +to ask themselves whither they are floating. They do not realize all the +importance of their acts nor the true meaning of their metamorphosis. + +The dear creatures should be content, for they have at last escaped from +the bondage of ages, have broken their chains, and vaulted over their +prison walls. "Lords and masters" have gradually become very humble and +obedient servants, and the "love, honour, and obey" of the marriage +service might now more logically be spoken by the man; on the lips of the +women of to-day it is but a graceful "_facon de parler_," and holds only +those who choose to be bound. + +It is not my intention to rail against the short-comings of the day. That +ungrateful task I leave to sterner moralists, and hopeful souls who +naively imagine they can stem the current of an epoch with the barrier of +their eloquence, or sweep back an ocean of innovations by their logic. I +should like, however, to ask my sisters one question: Are they quite sure +that women gain by these changes? Do they imagine, these "sporty" young +females in short-cut skirts and mannish shirts and ties, that it is +seductive to a lover, or a husband to see his idol in a violent +perspiration, her draggled hair blowing across a sunburned face, panting +up a long hill in front of him on a bicycle, frantic at having lost her +race? Shade of gentle William! who said + + _A woman moved_, _is like a fountain troubled_,-- + _Muddy_, _ill-seeming_, _thick_, _bereft of beauty_. + _And while it is so_, _none so dry or thirsty_ + _Will deign to sip or touch one drop of it_. + +Is the modern girl under the impression that men will be contented with +poor imitations of themselves, to share their homes and be the mothers of +their children? She is throwing away the substance for the shadow! + +The moment women step out from the sanctuary of their homes, the glamour +that girlhood or maternity has thrown around them cast aside, that moment +will they cease to rule mankind. Women may agitate until they have +obtained political recognition, but will awake from their foolish dream +of power, realizing too late what they have sacrificed to obtain it, that +the price has been very heavy, and the fruit of their struggles bitter on +their lips. + +There are few men, I imagine, of my generation to whom the words "home" +and "mother" have not a penetrating charm, who do not look back with +softened heart and tender thoughts to fireside scenes of evening readings +and twilight talks at a mother's knee, realizing that the best in their +natures owes its growth to these influences. + +I sometimes look about me and wonder what the word "mother" will mean +later, to modern little boys. It will evoke, I fear, a confused +remembrance of some centaur-like being, half woman, half wheel, or as it +did to neglected little Rawdon Crawley, the vision of a radiant creature +in gauze and jewels, driving away to endless _fetes_--_fetes_ followed by +long mornings, when he was told not to make any noise, or play too +loudly, "as poor mamma is resting." What other memories can the +"successful" woman of to-day hope to leave in the minds of her children? +If the child remembers his mother in this way, will not the man who has +known and perhaps loved her, feel the same sensation of empty futility +when her name is mentioned? + +The woman who proposes a game of cards to a youth who comes to pass an +hour in her society, can hardly expect him to carry away a particularly +tender memory of her as he leaves the house. The girl who has rowed, +ridden, or raced at a man's side for days, with the object of getting the +better of him at some sport or pastime, cannot reasonably hope to be +connected in his thoughts with ideas more tender or more elevated than +"odds" or "handicaps," with an undercurrent of pique if his unsexed +companion has "downed" him successfully. + +What man, unless he be singularly dissolute or unfortunate, but turns his +steps, when he can, towards some dainty parlor where he is sure of +finding a smiling, soft-voiced woman, whose welcome he knows will soothe +his irritated nerves and restore the even balance of his temper, whose +charm will work its subtle way into his troubled spirit? The wife he +loves, or the friend he admires and respects, will do more for him in one +such quiet hour when two minds commune, coming closer to the real man, +and moving him to braver efforts, and nobler aims, than all the beauties +and "sporty" acquaintances of a lifetime. No matter what a man's +education or taste is, none are insensible to such an atmosphere or to +the grace and witchery a woman can lend to the simplest surroundings. She +need not be beautiful or brilliant to hold him in lifelong allegiance, if +she but possess this magnetism. + +Madame Recamier was a beautiful, but not a brilliant woman, yet she held +men her slaves for years. To know her was to fall under her charm, and +to feel it once was to remain her adorer for life. She will go down to +history as the type of a fascinating woman. Being asked once by an +acquaintance what spell she worked on mankind that enabled her to hold +them for ever at her feet, she laughingly answered: + +"I have always found two words sufficient. When a visitor comes into my +salon, I say, '_Enfin_!' and when he gets up to go away, I say, +'_Deja_!'" + +"What is this wonderful 'charm' he is writing about?" I hear some +sprightly maiden inquire as she reads these lines. My dear young lady, +if you ask the question, you have judged yourself and been found wanting. +But to satisfy you as far as I can, I will try and define it--not by +telling you what it is; that is beyond my power--but by negatives, the +only way in which subtle subjects can be approached. + +A woman of charm is never flustered and never _distraite_. She talks +little, and rarely of herself, remembering that bores are persons who +insist on talking about themselves. She does not break the thread of a +conversation by irrelevant questions or confabulate in an undertone with +the servants. No one of her guests receives more of her attention than +another and none are neglected. She offers to each one who speaks the +homage of her entire attention. She never makes an effort to be +brilliant or entertain with her wit. She is far too clever for that. +Neither does she volunteer information nor converse about her troubles or +her ailments, nor wander off into details about people you do not know. + +She is all things--to each man she likes, in the best sense of that +phrase, appreciating his qualities, stimulating him to better things. + + --_for his gayer hours_ + _She has a voice of gladness and a smile and eloquence of beauty_; + _and she glides_ + _Into his darker musings with a mild and healing sympathy that steals + away_ + _Their sharpness ere he is aware_. + + + + +No. 2--The Moth and the Star + + +The truth of the saying that "it is always the unexpected that happens," +receives in this country a confirmation from an unlooked-for quarter, as +does the fact of human nature being always, discouragingly, the same in +spite of varied surroundings. This sounds like a paradox, but is an +exceedingly simple statement easily proved. + +That the great mass of Americans, drawn as they are from such varied +sources, should take any interest in the comings and goings or social +doings of a small set of wealthy and fashionable people, is certainly an +unexpected development. That to read of the amusements and home life of +a clique of people with whom they have little in common, whose whole +education and point of view are different from their own, and whom they +have rarely seen and never expect to meet, should afford the average +citizen any amusement seems little short of impossible. + +One accepts as a natural sequence that abroad (where an hereditary +nobility have ruled for centuries, and accustomed the people to look up +to them as the visible embodiment of all that is splendid and +unattainable in life) such interest should exist. That the home-coming +of an English or French nobleman to his estates should excite the +enthusiasm of hundreds more or less dependent upon him for their +amusement or more material advantages; that his marriage to an +heiress--meaning to them the re-opening of a long-closed _chateau_ and +the beginning of a period of prosperity for the district--should excite +his neighbors is not to be wondered at. + +It is well known that whole regions have been made prosperous by the +residence of a court, witness the wealth and trade brought into Scotland +by the Queen's preference for "the Land of Cakes," and the discontent and +poverty in Ireland from absenteeism and persistent avoidance of that +country by the court. But in this land, where every reason for +interesting one class in another seems lacking, that thousands of well-to- +do people (half the time not born in this hemisphere), should delightedly +devour columns of incorrect information about New York dances and Lenox +house-parties, winter cruises, or Newport coaching parades, strikes the +observer as the "unexpected" in its purest form. + +That this interest exists is absolutely certain. During a trip in the +West, some seasons ago, I was dumbfounded to find that the members of a +certain New York set were familiarly spoken of by their first names, and +was assailed with all sorts of eager questions when it was discovered +that I knew them. A certain young lady, at that time a belle in New +York, was currently called _Sally_, and a well-known sportsman _Fred_, by +thousands of people who had never seen either of them. It seems +impossible, does it not? Let us look a little closer into the reason of +this interest, and we shall find how simple is the apparent paradox. + +Perhaps in no country, in all the world, do the immense middle classes +lead such uninteresting lives, and have such limited resources at their +disposal for amusement or the passing of leisure hours. + +Abroad the military bands play constantly in the public parks; the +museums and palaces are always open wherein to pass rainy Sunday +afternoons; every village has its religious _fetes_ and local fair, +attended with dancing and games. All these mental relaxations are +lacking in our newer civilization; life is stripped of everything that is +not distinctly practical; the dull round of weekly toil is only broken by +the duller idleness of an American Sunday. Naturally, these people long +for something outside of themselves and their narrow sphere. + +Suddenly there arises a class whose wealth permits them to break through +the iron circle of work and boredom, who do picturesque and delightful +things, which appeal directly to the imagination; they build a summer +residence complete, in six weeks, with furniture and bric-a-brac, on the +top of a roadless mountain; they sail in fairylike yachts to summer seas, +and marry their daughters to the heirs of ducal houses; they float up the +Nile in dahabeeyah, or pass the "month of flowers" in far Japan. + +It is but human nature to delight in reading of these things. Here the +great mass of the people find (and eagerly seize on), the element of +romance lacking in their lives, infinitely more enthralling than the +doings of any novel's heroine. It is real! It is taking place! +and--still deeper reason--in every ambitious American heart lingers the +secret hope that with luck and good management they too may do those very +things, or at least that their children will enjoy the fortunes they have +gained, in just those ways. The gloom of the monotonous present is +brightened, the patient toiler returns to his desk with something +definite before him--an objective point--towards which he can struggle; +he knows that this is no impossible dream. Dozens have succeeded and +prove to him what energy and enterprise can accomplish. + +Do not laugh at this suggestion; it is far truer than you imagine. Many +a weary woman has turned from such reading to her narrow duties, feeling +that life is not all work, and with renewed hope in the possibilities of +the future. + +Doubtless a certain amount of purely idle curiosity is mingled with the +other feelings. I remember quite well showing our city sights to a bored +party of Western friends, and failing entirely to amuse them, when, +happening to mention as we drove up town, "there goes Mr. Blank," (naming +a prominent leader of cotillions), my guests nearly fell over each other +and out of the carriage in their eagerness to see the gentleman of whom +they had read so much, and who was, in those days, a power in his way, +and several times after they expressed the greatest satisfaction at +having seen him. + +I have found, with rare exceptions, and the experience has been rather +widely gathered all over the country, that this interest--or call it what +you will--has been entirely without spite or bitterness, rather the +delight of a child in a fairy story. For people are rarely envious of +things far removed from their grasp. You will find that a woman who is +bitter because her neighbor has a girl "help" or a more comfortable +cottage, rarely feels envy towards the owners of opera-boxes or yachts. +Such heart-burnings (let us hope they are few) are among a class born in +the shadow of great wealth, and bred up with tastes that they can neither +relinquish nor satisfy. The large majority of people show only a good- +natured inclination to chaff, none of the "class feeling" which certain +papers and certain politicians try to excite. Outside of the large +cities with their foreign-bred, semi-anarchistic populations, the tone is +perfectly friendly; for the simple reason that it never entered into the +head of any American to imagine that there _was_ any class difference. To +him his rich neighbors are simply his lucky neighbors, almost his +relations, who, starting from a common stock, have been able to "get +there" sooner than he has done. So he wishes them luck on the voyage in +which he expects to join them as soon as he has had time to make a +fortune. + +So long as the world exists, or at least until we have reformed it and +adopted Mr. Bellamy's delightful scheme of existence as described in +"Looking Backward," great fortunes will be made, and painful contrasts be +seen, especially in cities, and it would seem to be the duty of the press +to soften--certainly not to sharpen--the edge of discontent. As long as +human nature is human nature, and the poor care to read of the doings of +the more fortunate, by all means give them the reading they enjoy and +demand, but let it be written in a kindly spirit so that it may be a +cultivation as well as a recreation. Treat this perfectly natural and +honest taste honestly and naturally, for, after all, it is + + _The desire of the moth for the star_, + _Of the night for the morrow_. + _The devotion to something afar_ + _From the sphere of our sorrow_. + + + + +No. 3--Contrasted Travelling + + +When our parents went to Europe fifty years ago, it was the event of a +lifetime--a tour lovingly mapped out in advance with advice from +travelled friends. Passports were procured, books read, wills made, and +finally, prayers were offered up in church and solemn leave-taking +performed. Once on the other side, descriptive letters were +conscientiously written, and eagerly read by friends at home,--in spite +of these epistles being on the thinnest of paper and with crossing +carried to a fine art, for postage was high in the forties. Above all, a +journal was kept. + +Such a journal lies before me as I write. Four little volumes in worn +morocco covers and faded "Italian" writing, more precious than all my +other books combined, their sight recalls that lost time--my youth--when, +as a reward, they were unlocked that I might look at the drawings, and +the sweetest voice in the world would read to me from them! Happy, +vanished days, that are so far away they seem to have been in another +existence! + +The first volume opens with the voyage across the Atlantic, made in an +American clipper (a model unsurpassed the world over), which was +accomplished in thirteen days, a feat rarely equalled now, by sail. +Genial Captain Nye was in command. The same who later, when a steam +propelled vessel was offered him, refused, as unworthy of a seaman, "to +boil a kettle across the ocean." + +Life friendships were made in those little cabins, under the swinging +lamp the travellers re-read last volumes so as to be prepared to +appreciate everything on landing. Ireland, England and Scotland were +visited with an enthusiasm born of Scott, the tedium of long coaching +journeys being beguiled by the first "numbers" of "Pickwick," over which +the men of the party roared, but which the ladies did not care for, +thinking it vulgar, and not to be compared to "Waverley," "Thaddeus of +Warsaw," or "The Mysteries of Udolpho." + +A circular letter to our diplomatic agents abroad was presented in each +city, a rite invariably followed by an invitation to dine, for which +occasions a black satin frock with a low body and a few simple ornaments, +including (supreme elegance) a diamond cross, were carried in the trunks. +In London a travelling carriage was bought and stocked, the indispensable +courier engaged, half guide, half servant, who was expected to explore a +city, or wait at table, as occasion required. Four days were passed +between Havre and Paris, and the slow progress across Europe was +accomplished, Murray in one hand and Byron in the other. + +One page used particularly to attract my boyish attention. It was headed +by a naive little drawing of the carriage at an Italian inn door, and +described how, after the dangers and discomforts of an Alpine pass, they +descended by sunny slopes into Lombardy. Oh! the rapture that breathes +from those simple pages! The vintage scenes, the mid-day halt for +luncheon eaten in the open air, the afternoon start, the front seat of +the carriage heaped with purple grapes, used to fire my youthful +imagination and now recalls Madame de Stael's line on perfect happiness: +"To be young! to be in love! to be in Italy!" + +Do people enjoy Europe as much now? I doubt it! It has become too much +a matter of course, a necessary part of the routine of life. Much of the +bloom is brushed from foreign scenes by descriptive books and +photographs, that St. Mark's or Mt. Blanc has become as familiar to a +child's eye as the house he lives in, and in consequence the reality now +instead of being a revelation is often a disappointment. + +In my youth, it was still an event to cross. I remember my first voyage +on the old side-wheeled _Scotia_, and Captain Judkins in a wheeled chair, +and a perpetual bad temper, being pushed about the deck; and our delight, +when the inevitable female asking him (three days out) how far we were +from land, got the answer "about a mile!" + +"Indeed! How interesting! In which direction?" + +"In that direction, madam," shouted the captain, pointing downward as he +turned his back to her. + +If I remember, we were then thirteen days getting to Liverpool, and made +the acquaintance on board of the people with whom we travelled during +most of that winter. Imagine anyone now making an acquaintance on board +a steamer! In those simple days people depended on the friendships made +at summer hotels or boarding-houses for their visiting list. At present, +when a girl comes out, her mother presents her to everybody she will be +likely to know if she were to live a century. In the seventies, ladies +cheerfully shared their state-rooms with women they did not know, and +often became friends in consequence; but now, unless a certain deck-suite +can be secured, with bath and sitting-room, on one or two particular +"steamers," the great lady is in despair. Yet our mothers were quite as +refined as the present generation, only they took life simply, as they +found it. + +Children are now taken abroad so young, that before they have reached an +age to appreciate what they see, Europe has become to them a twice-told +tale. So true is this, that a receipt for making children good Americans +is to bring them up abroad. Once they get back here it is hard to entice +them away again. + +With each improvement in the speed of our steamers, something of the +glamour of Europe vanishes. The crowds that yearly rush across see and +appreciate less in a lifetime than our parents did in their one tour +abroad. A good lady of my acquaintance was complaining recently how much +Paris bored her. + +"What can you do to pass the time?" she asked. I innocently answered +that I knew nothing so entrancing as long mornings passed at the Louvre. + +"Oh, yes, I do that too," she replied, "but I like the 'Bon Marche' +best!" + +A trip abroad has become a purely social function to a large number of +wealthy Americans, including "presentation" in London and a winter in +Rome or Cairo. And just as a "smart" Englishman is sure to tell you that +he has never visited the "Tower," it has become good form to ignore the +sight-seeing side of Europe; hundreds of New Yorkers never seeing +anything of Paris beyond the Rue de la Paix and the Bois. They would as +soon think of going to Cluny or St. Denis as of visiting the museum in +our park! + +Such people go to Fontainebleau because they are buying furniture, and +they wish to see the best models. They go to Versailles on the coach and +"do" the Palace during the half-hour before luncheon. Beyond that, +enthusiasm rarely carries them. As soon as they have settled themselves +at the Bristol or the Rhin begins the endless treadmill of leaving cards +on all the people just seen at home, and whom they will meet again in a +couple of months at Newport or Bar Harbor. This duty and the +all-entrancing occupation of getting clothes fills up every spare hour. +Indeed, clothes seem to pervade the air of Paris in May, the conversation +rarely deviating from them. If you meet a lady you know looking ill, and +ask the cause, it generally turns out to be "four hours a day standing to +be fitted." Incredible as it may seem, I have been told of one plain +maiden lady, who makes a trip across, spring and autumn, with the sole +object of getting her two yearly outfits. + +Remembering the hundreds of cultivated people whose dream in life (often +unrealized from lack of means) has been to go abroad and visit the scenes +their reading has made familiar, and knowing what such a trip would mean +to them, and how it would be looked back upon during the rest of an +obscure life, I felt it almost a duty to "suppress" a wealthy female +(doubtless an American cousin of Lady Midas) when she informed me, the +other day, that decidedly she would not go abroad this spring. + +"It is not necessary. Worth has my measures!" + + + + +No. 4--The Outer and the Inner Woman + + +It is a sad commentary on our boasted civilization that cases of +shoplifting occur more and more frequently each year, in which the +delinquents are women of education and refinement, or at least belong to +families and occupy positions in which one would expect to find those +qualities! The reason, however, is not difficult to discover. + +In the wake of our hasty and immature prosperity has come (as it does to +all suddenly enriched societies) a love of ostentation, a desire to +dazzle the crowd by displays of luxury and rich trappings indicative of +crude and vulgar standards. The newly acquired money, instead of being +expended for solid comforts or articles which would afford lasting +satisfaction, is lavished on what can be worn in public, or the outer +shell of display, while the home table and fireside belongings are +neglected. A glance around our theatres, or at the men and women in our +crowded thoroughfares, is sufficient to reveal to even a casual observer +that the mania for fine clothes and what is costly, _per se_, has become +the besetting sin of our day and our land. + +The tone of most of the papers and of our theatrical advertisements +reflects this feeling. The amount of money expended for a work of art or +a new building is mentioned before any comment as to its beauty or +fitness. A play is spoken of as "Manager So and So's thirty-thousand- +dollar production!" The fact that a favorite actress will appear in four +different dresses during the three acts of a comedy, each toilet being a +special creation designed for her by a leading Parisian house, is +considered of supreme importance and is dwelt upon in the programme as a +special attraction. + +It would be astonishing if the taste of our women were different, +considering the way clothes are eternally being dangled before their +eyes. Leading papers publish illustrated supplements devoted exclusively +to the subject of attire, thus carrying temptation into every humble +home, and suggesting unattainable luxuries. Windows in many of the +larger shops contain life-sized manikins loaded with the latest costly +and ephemeral caprices of fashion arranged to catch the eye of the poorer +class of women, who stand in hundreds gazing at the display like larks +attracted by a mirror! Watch those women as they turn away, and listen +to their sighs of discontent and envy. Do they not tell volumes about +petty hopes and ambitions? + +I do not refer to the wealthy women whose toilets are in keeping with +their incomes and the general footing of their households; that they +should spend more or less in fitting themselves out daintily is of little +importance. The point where this subject becomes painful is in families +of small means where young girls imagine that to be elaborately dressed +is the first essential of existence, and, in consequence, bend their +labors and their intelligence towards this end. Last spring I asked an +old friend where she and her daughters intended passing their summer. Her +answer struck me as being characteristic enough to quote: "We should much +prefer," she said, "returning to Bar Harbor, for we all enjoy that place +and have many friends there. But the truth is, my daughters have bought +themselves very little in the way of toilet this year, as our finances +are not in a flourishing condition. So my poor girls will be obliged to +make their last year's dresses do for another season. Under these +circumstances, it is out of the question for us to return a second summer +to the same place." + +I do not know how this anecdote strikes my readers. It made me +thoughtful and sad to think that, in a family of intelligent and +practical women, such a reason should be considered sufficient to +outweigh enjoyment, social relations, even health, and allowed to change +the plans of an entire family. + +As American women are so fond of copying English ways they should be +willing to take a few lessons on the subject of raiment from across the +water. As this is not intended to be a dissertation on "How to Dress +Well on Nothing a Year," and as I feel the greatest diffidence in +approaching a subject of which I know absolutely nothing, it will be +better to sheer off from these reefs and quicksands. Every one who reads +these lines will know perfectly well what is meant, when reference is +made to the good sense and practical utility of English women's dress. + +What disgusts and angers me (when my way takes me into our surface or +elevated cars or into ferry boats and local trains) is the utter +dissonance between the outfit of most of the women I meet and their +position and occupation. So universal is this, that it might almost be +laid down as an axiom, that the American woman, no matter in what walk of +life you observe her, or what the time or the place, is always +persistently and grotesquely overdressed. From the women who frequent +the hotels of our summer or winter resorts, down all the steps of the +social staircase to the char-woman, who consents (spasmodically) to +remove the dust and waste-papers from my office, there seems to be the +same complete disregard of fitness. The other evening, in leaving my +rooms, I brushed against a portly person in the half-light of the +corridor. There was a shimmer of (what appeared to my inexperienced eyes +as) costly stuffs, a huge hat crowned the shadow itself, "topped by +nodding plumes," which seemed to account for the depleted condition of my +feather duster. + +I found on inquiring of the janitor, that the dressy person I had met, +was the char-woman in street attire, and that a closet was set aside in +the building, for the special purpose of her morning and evening +transformations, which she underwent in the belief that her social +position in Avenue A would suffer, should she appear in the streets +wearing anything less costly than seal-skin and velvet or such imitations +of those expensive materials as her stipend would permit. + +I have as tenants of a small wooden house in Jersey City, a bank clerk, +his wife and their three daughters. He earns in the neighborhood of +fifteen hundred dollars a year. Their rent (with which, by the way, they +are always in arrears) is three hundred dollars. I am favored spring and +autumn by a visit from the ladies of that family, in the hope (generally +futile) of inducing me to do some ornamental papering or painting in +their residence, subjects on which they have by experience found my agent +to be unapproachable. When those four women descend upon me, I am fairly +dazzled by the splendor of their attire, and lost in wonder as to how the +price of all that finery can have been squeezed out of the twelve +remaining hundreds of their income. When I meet the father he is shabby +to the outer limits of the genteel. His hat has, I am sure, supported +the suns and snowstorms of a dozen seasons. There is a threadbare shine +on his apparel that suggests a heartache in each whitened seam, but the +ladies are mirrors of fashion, as well as moulds of form. What can +remain for any creature comforts after all those fine clothes have been +paid for? And how much is put away for the years when the long-suffering +money maker will be past work, or saved towards the time when sickness or +accident shall appear on the horizon? How those ladies had the "nerve" +to enter a ferry boat or crowd into a cable car, dressed as they were, +has always been a marvel to me. A landau and two liveried servants would +barely have been in keeping with their appearance. + +Not long ago, a great English nobleman, who is also famous in the +yachting world, visited this country accompanied by his two daughters, +high-bred and genial ladies. No self-respecting American shop girl or +fashionable typewriter would have condescended to appear in the +inexpensive attire which those English women wore. Wherever one met +them, at dinner, _fete_, or ball, they were always the most simply +dressed women in the room. I wonder if it ever occurred to any of their +gorgeously attired hostesses, that it was because their transatlantic +guests were so sure of their position, that they contented themselves +with such simple toilets knowing that nothing they might wear could +either improve or alter their standing. + +In former ages, sumptuary laws were enacted by parental governments, in +the hope of suppressing extravagance in dress, the state of affairs we +deplore now, not being a new development of human weakness, but as old as +wealth. + +The desire to shine by the splendor of one's trappings is the first idea +of the parvenu, especially here in this country, where the ambitious are +denied the pleasure of acquiring a title, and where official rank carries +with it so little social weight. Few more striking ways present +themselves to the crude and half-educated for the expenditure of a new +fortune than the purchase of sumptuous apparel, the satisfaction being +immediate and material. The wearer of a complete and perfect toilet must +experience a delight of which the uninitiated know nothing, for such +cruel sacrifices are made and so many privations endured to procure this +satisfaction. When I see groups of women, clad in the latest designs of +purple and fine linen, stand shivering on street corners of a winter +night, until they can crowd into a car, I doubt if the joy they get from +their clothes, compensates them for the creature comforts they are forced +to forego, and I wonder if it never occurs to them to spend less on their +wardrobes and so feel they can afford to return from a theatre or concert +comfortably, in a cab, as a foreign woman, with their income would do. + +There is a stoical determination about the American point of view that +compels a certain amount of respect. Our countrywomen will deny +themselves pleasures, will economize on their food and will remain in +town during the summer, but when walking abroad they must be clad in the +best, so that no one may know by their appearance if the income be +counted by hundreds or thousands. + +While these standards prevail and the female mind is fixed on this +subject with such dire intent, it is not astonishing that a weaker sister +is occasionally tempted beyond her powers of resistance. Nor that each +day a new case of a well-dressed woman thieving in a shop reaches our +ears. The poor feeble-minded creature is not to blame. She is but the +reflexion of the minds around her and is probably like the lady Emerson +tells of, who confessed to him "that the sense of being perfectly well- +dressed had given her a feeling of inward tranquillity which religion was +powerless to bestow." + + + + +No. 5--On Some Gilded Misalliances + + +A dear old American lady, who lived the greater part of her life in Rome, +and received every body worth knowing in her spacious drawing-rooms, far +up in the dim vastnesses of a Roman palace, used to say that she had only +known one really happy marriage made by an American girl abroad. + +In those days, being young and innocent, I considered that remark +cynical, and in my heart thought nothing could be more romantic and +charming than for a fair compatriot to assume an historic title and +retire to her husband's estates, and rule smilingly over him and a +devoted tenantry, as in the last act of a comic opera, when a +rose-colored light is burning and the orchestra plays the last brilliant +chords of a wedding march. + +There seemed to my perverted sense a certain poetic justice about the +fact that money, gained honestly but prosaically, in groceries or gas, +should go to regild an ancient blazon or prop up the crumbling walls of +some stately palace abroad. + +Many thoughtful years and many cruel realities have taught me that my +gracious hostess of the "seventies" was right, and that marriage under +these conditions is apt to be much more like the comic opera after the +curtain has been rung down, when the lights are out, the applauding +public gone home, and the weary actors brought slowly back to the present +and the positive, are wondering how they are to pay their rent or dodge +the warrant in ambush around the corner. + +International marriages usually come about from a deficient knowledge of +the world. The father becomes rich, the family travel abroad, some +mutual friend (often from purely interested motives) produces a suitor +for the hand of the daughter, in the shape of a "prince" with a title +that makes the whole simple American family quiver with delight. + +After a few visits the suitor declares himself; the girl is flattered, +the father loses his head, seeing visions of his loved daughter +hob-nobbing with royalty, and (intoxicating thought!) snubbing the +"swells" at home who had shown reluctance to recognize him and his +family. + +It is next to impossible for him to get any reliable information about +his future son-in-law in a country where, as an American, he has few +social relations, belongs to no club, and whose idiom is a sealed book to +him. Every circumstance conspires to keep the flaws on the article for +sale out of sight and place the suitor in an advantageous light. Several +weeks' "courting" follows, paterfamilias agrees to part with a handsome +share of his earnings, and a marriage is "arranged." + +In the case where the girl has retained some of her self-respect the +suitor is made to come to her country for the ceremony. And, that the +contrast between European ways and our simple habits may not be too +striking, an establishment is hastily got together, with hired liveries +and new-bought carriages, as in a recent case in this state. The +sensational papers write up this "international union," and publish +"faked" portraits of the bride and her noble spouse. The sovereign of +the groom's country (enchanted that some more American money is to be +imported into his land) sends an economical present and an autograph +letter. The act ends. Limelight and slow music! + +In a few years rumors of dissent and trouble float vaguely back to the +girl's family. Finally, either a great scandal occurs, and there is one +dishonored home the more in the world, or an expatriated woman, thousands +of miles from the friends and relatives who might be of some comfort to +her, makes up her mind to accept "anything" for the sake of her children, +and attempts to build up some sort of an existence out of the remains of +her lost illusions, and the father wakes up from his dream to realize +that his wealth has only served to ruin what he loved best in all the +world. + +Sometimes the conditions are delightfully comic, as in a well-known case, +where the daughter, who married into an indolent, happy-go-lucky Italian +family, had inherited her father's business push and energy along with +his fortune, and immediately set about "running" her husband's estate as +she had seen her father do his bank. She tried to revive a +half-forgotten industry in the district, scraped and whitewashed their +picturesque old villa, proposed her husband's entering business, and in +short dashed head down against all his inherited traditions and national +prejudices, until her new family loathed the sight of the brisk American +face, and the poor she had tried to help, sulked in their newly drained +houses and refused to be comforted. Her ways were not Italian ways, and +she seemed to the nun-like Italian ladies, almost unsexed, as she tramped +about the fields, talking artificial manure and subsoil drainage with the +men. Yet neither she nor her husband was to blame. The young Italian +had but followed the teachings of his family, which decreed that the only +honorable way for an aristocrat to acquire wealth was to marry it. The +American wife honestly tried to do her duty in this new position, naively +thinking she could engraft transatlantic "go" upon the indolent Italian +character. Her work was in vain; she made herself and her husband so +unpopular that they are now living in this country, regretting too late +the error of their ways. + +Another case but little less laughable, is that of a Boston girl with a +neat little fortune of her own, who, when married to the young Viennese +of her choice, found that he expected her to live with his family on the +third floor of their "palace" (the two lower floors being rented to +foreigners), and as there was hardly enough money for a box at the opera, +she was not expected to go, whereas his position made it necessary for +him to have a stall and appear there nightly among the men of his rank, +the astonished and disillusioned Bostonian remaining at home _en tete-a- +tete_ with the women of his family, who seemed to think this the most +natural arrangement in the world. + +It certainly is astonishing that we, the most patriotic of nations, with +such high opinion of ourselves and our institutions, should be so ready +to hand over our daughters and our ducats to the first foreigner who asks +for them, often requiring less information about him than we should +consider necessary before buying a horse or a dog. + +Women of no other nation have this mania for espousing aliens. Nowhere +else would a girl with a large fortune dream of marrying out of her +country. Her highest ideal of a husband would be a man of her own kin. +It is the rarest thing in the world to find a well-born French, Spanish, +or Italian woman married to a foreigner and living away from her country. +How can a woman expect to be happy separated from all the ties and +traditions of her youth? If she is taken abroad young, she may still +hope to replace her friends as is often done. But the real reason of +unhappiness (greater and deeper than this) lies in the fundamental +difference of the whole social structure between our country and that of +her adoption, and the radically different way of looking at every side of +life. + +Surely a girl must feel that a man who allows a marriage to be arranged +for him (and only signs the contact because its pecuniary clauses are to +his satisfaction, and who would withdraw in a moment if these were +suppressed), must have an entirely different point of view from her own +on all the vital issues of life. + +Foreigners undoubtedly make excellent husbands for their own women. But +they are, except in rare cases, unsatisfactory helpmeets for American +girls. It is impossible to touch on more than a side or two of this +subject. But as an illustration the following contrasted stories may be +cited: + +Two sisters of an aristocratic American family, each with an income of +over forty thousand dollars a year, recently married French noblemen. +They naturally expected to continue abroad the life they had led at home, +in which opera boxes, saddle horses, and constant entertaining were +matters of course. In both cases, our compatriots discovered that their +husbands (neither of them penniless) had entirely different views. In +the first place, they were told that it was considered "bad form" in +France for young married women to entertain; besides, the money was +needed for improvements, and in many other ways, and as every well-to-do +French family puts aside at least a third of its income as _dots_ for the +children (boys as well as girls), these brides found themselves cramped +for money for the first time in their lives, and obliged, during their +one month a year in Paris, to put up with hired traps, and depend on +their friends for evenings at the opera. + +This story is a telling set-off to the case of an American wife, who one +day received a windfall in the form of a check for a tidy amount. She +immediately proposed a trip abroad to her husband, but found that he +preferred to remain at home in the society of his horses and dogs. So +our fair compatriot starts off (with his full consent), has her outing, +spends her little "pile," and returns after three or four months to the +home of her delighted spouse. + +Do these two stories need any comment? Let our sisters and their friends +think twice before they make themselves irrevocably wheels in a machine +whose working is unknown to them, lest they be torn to pieces as it +moves. Having the good luck to be born in the "paradise of women," let +them beware how they leave it, charm the serpent never so wisely, for +they may find themselves, like the Peri, outside the gate. + + + + +No. 6--The Complacency of Mediocrity + + +Full as small intellects are of queer kinks, unexplained turnings and +groundless likes and dislikes, the bland contentment that buoys up the +incompetent is the most difficult of all vagaries to account for. Rarely +do twenty-four hours pass without examples of this exasperating weakness +appearing on the surface of those shallows that commonplace people so +naively call "their minds." + +What one would expect is extreme modesty, in the half-educated or the +ignorant, and self-approbation higher up in the scale, where it might +more reasonably dwell. Experience, however, teaches that exactly the +opposite is the case among those who have achieved success. + +The accidents of a life turned by chance out of the beaten tracks, have +thrown me at times into acquaintanceship with some of the greater lights +of the last thirty years. And not only have they been, as a rule, most +unassuming men and women; but in the majority of cases positively self- +depreciatory; doubting of themselves and their talents, constantly aiming +at greater perfection in their art or a higher development of their +powers, never contented with what they have achieved, beyond the idea +that it has been another step toward their goal. Knowing this, it is +always a shock on meeting the mediocre people who form such a +discouraging majority in any society, to discover that they are all so +pleased with themselves, their achievements, their place in the world, +and their own ability and discernment! + +Who has not sat chafing in silence while Mediocrity, in a white waistcoat +and jangling fobs, occupied the after-dinner hour in imparting second- +hand information as his personal views on literature and art? Can you +not hear him saying once again: "I don't pretend to know anything about +art and all that sort of thing, you know, but when I go to an exhibition +I can always pick out the best pictures at a glance. Sort of a way I +have, and I never make mistakes, you know." + +Then go and watch, as I have, Henri Rochefort as he laboriously forms the +opinions that are to appear later in one of his "_Salons_," realizing the +while that he is _facile princeps_ among the art critics of his day, that +with a line he can make or mar a reputation and by a word draw the +admiring crowd around an unknown canvas. While Rochefort toils and +ponders and hesitates, do you suppose a doubt as to his own astuteness +ever dims the self-complacency of White Waistcoat? Never! + +There lies the strength of the feeble-minded. By a special dispensation +of Providence, they can never see but one side of a subject, so are +always convinced that they are right, and from the height of their +contentment, look down on those who chance to differ with them. + +A lady who has gathered into her dainty salons the fruit of many years' +careful study and tireless "weeding" will ask anxiously if you are quite +sure you like the effect of her latest acquisition--some +eighteenth-century statuette or screen (flotsam, probably, from the great +shipwreck of Versailles), and listen earnestly to your verdict. The good +soul who has just furnished her house by contract, with the latest "Louis +Fourteenth Street" productions, conducts you complacently through her +chambers of horrors, wreathed in tranquil smiles, born of ignorance and +that smug assurance granted only to the--small. + +When a small intellect goes in for cultivating itself and improving its +mind, you realize what the poet meant in asserting that a little learning +was a dangerous thing. For Mediocrity is apt, when it dines out, to get +up a subject beforehand, and announce to an astonished circle, as quite +new and personal discoveries, that the Renaissance was introduced into +France from Italy, or that Columbus in his day made important "finds." + +When the incompetent advance another step and write or paint--which, +alas! is only too frequent--the world of art and literature is flooded +with their productions. When White Waistcoat, for example, takes to +painting, late in life, and comes to you, canvas in hand, for criticism +(read praise), he is apt to remark modestly: + +"Corot never painted until he was fifty, and I am only forty-eight. So I +feel I should not let myself be discouraged." + +The problem of life is said to be the finding of a happiness that is not +enjoyed at the expense of others, and surely this class have solved that +Sphinx's riddle, for they float through their days in a dream of +complacency disturbed neither by corroding doubt nor harassed by +jealousies. + +Whole families of feeble-minded people, on the strength of an ancestor +who achieved distinction a hundred years ago, live in constant +thanksgiving that they "are not as other men." None of the great man's +descendants have done anything to be particularly proud of since their +remote progenitor signed the Declaration of Independence or governed a +colony. They have vegetated in small provincial cities and inter-married +into other equally fortunate families, but the sense of superiority is +ever present to sustain them, under straitened circumstances and +diminishing prestige. The world may move on around them, but they never +advance. Why should they? They have reached perfection. The brains and +enterprise that have revolutionized our age knock in vain at their doors. +They belong to that vast "majority that is always in the wrong," being so +pleased with themselves, their ways, and their feeble little lines of +thought, that any change or advancement gives their system a shock. + +A painter I know was once importuned for a sketch by a lady of this +class. After many delays and renewed demands he presented her one day, +when she and some friends were visiting his studio, with a delightful +open-air study simply framed. She seemed confused at the offering, to +his astonishment, as she had not lacked _aplomb_ in asking for the +sketch. After much blushing and fumbling she succeeded in getting the +painting loose, and handing back the frame, remarked: + +"I will take the painting, but you must keep the frame. My husband would +never allow me to accept anything of value from you!"--and smiled on the +speechless painter, doubtless charmed with her own tact. + +Complacent people are the same drag on a society that a brake would be to +a coach going up hill. They are the "eternal negative" and would +extinguish, if they could, any light stronger than that to which their +weak eyes have been accustomed. They look with astonishment and distrust +at any one trying to break away from their tiresome old ways and habits, +and wonder why all the world is not as pleased with their personalities +as they are themselves, suggesting, if you are willing to waste your time +listening to their twaddle, that there is something radically wrong in +any innovation, that both "Church and State" will be imperilled if things +are altered. No blight, no mildew is more fatal to a plant than the +"complacent" are to the world. They resent any progress and are offended +if you mention before them any new standards or points of view. "What +has been good enough for us and our parents should certainly be +satisfactory to the younger generations." It seems to the contented like +pure presumption on the part of their acquaintances to wander after +strange gods, in the shape of new ideals, higher standards of culture, or +a perfected refinement of surroundings. + +We are perhaps wrong to pity complacent people. It is for another class +our sympathy should be kept; for those who cannot refrain from doubting +of themselves and the value of their work--those unfortunate gifted and +artistic spirits who descend too often the _via dolorosa_ of discontent +and despair, who have a higher ideal than their neighbors, and, in +struggling after an unattainable perfection, fall by the wayside. + + + + +No. 7--The Discontent of Talent + + +The complacency that buoys up self-sufficient souls, soothing them with +the illusion that they themselves, their towns, country, language, and +habits are above improvement, causing them to shudder, as at a sacrilege, +if any changes are suggested, is fortunately limited to a class of stay- +at-home nonentities. In proportion as it is common among them, is it +rare or delightfully absent in any society of gifted or imaginative +people. + +Among our globe-trotting compatriots this defect is much less general +than in the older nations of the world, for the excellent reason, that +the moment a man travels or takes the trouble to know people of different +nationalities, his armor of complacency receives so severe a blow, that +it is shattered forever, the wanderer returning home wiser and much more +modest. There seems to be something fatal to conceit in the air of great +centres; professionally or in general society a man so soon finds his +level. + +The "great world" may foster other faults; human nature is sure to +develop some in every walk of life. Smug contentment, however, +disappears in its rarefied atmosphere, giving place to a craving for +improvement, a nervous alertness that keeps the mind from stagnating and +urges it on to do its best. + +It is never the beautiful woman who sits down in smiling serenity before +her mirror. She is tireless in her efforts to enhance her beauty and set +it off to the best advantage. Her figure is never slender enough, nor +her carriage sufficiently erect to satisfy. But the "frump" will let +herself and all her surroundings go to seed, not from humbleness of mind +or an overwhelming sense of her own unworthiness, but in pure complacent +conceit. + +A criticism to which the highly gifted lay themselves open from those who +do not understand them, is their love of praise, the critics failing to +grasp the fact that this passion for measuring one's self with others, +like the gad-fly pursuing poor Io, never allows a moment's repose in the +green pastures of success, but goads them constantly up the rocky sides +of endeavor. It is not that they love flattery, but that they need +approbation as a counterpoise to the dark moments of self-abasement and +as a sustaining aid for higher flights. + +Many years ago I was present at a final sitting which my master, Carolus +Duran, gave to one of my fair compatriots. He knew that the lady was +leaving Paris on the morrow, and that in an hour, her husband and his +friends were coming to see and criticise the portrait--always a terrible +ordeal for an artist. + +To any one familiar with this painter's moods, it was evident that the +result of the sitting was not entirely satisfactory. The quick +breathing, the impatient tapping movement of the foot, the swift backward +springs to obtain a better view, so characteristic of him in moments of +doubt, and which had twenty years before earned him the name of _le +danseur_ from his fellow-copyists at the Louvre, betrayed to even a +casual observer that his discouragement and discontent were at boiling +point. + +The sound of a bell and a murmur of voices announced the entrance of the +visitors into the vast studio. After the formalities of introduction had +been accomplished the new-comers glanced at the portrait, but uttered +never a word. From it they passed in a perfectly casual manner to an +inspection of the beautiful contents of the room, investigating the +tapestries, admiring the armor, and finally, after another glance at the +portrait, the husband remarked: "You have given my wife a jolly long +neck, haven't you?" and, turning to his friends, began laughing and +chatting in English. + +If vitriol had been thrown on my poor master's quivering frame, the +effect could not have been more instantaneous, his ignorance of the +language spoken doubtless exaggerating his impression of being ridiculed. +Suddenly he turned very white, and before any of us had divined his +intention he had seized a Japanese sword lying by and cut a dozen gashes +across the canvas. Then, dropping his weapon, he flung out of the room, +leaving his sitter and her friends in speechless consternation, to wonder +then and ever after in what way they had offended him. In their +opinions, if a man had talent and understood his business, he should +produce portraits with the same ease that he would answer dinner +invitations, and if they paid for, they were in no way bound also to +praise, his work. They were entirely pleased with the result, but did +not consider it necessary to tell him so, no idea having crossed their +minds that he might be in one of those moods so frequent with artistic +natures, when words of approbation and praise are as necessary to them, +as the air we breathe is to us, mortals of a commoner clay. + +Even in the theatrical and operatic professions, those hotbeds of +conceit, you will generally find among the "stars" abysmal depths of +discouragement and despair. One great tenor, who has delighted New York +audiences during several winters past, invariably announces to his +intimates on arising that his "voice has gone," and that, in consequence +he will "never sing again," and has to be caressed and cajoled back into +some semblance of confidence before attempting a performance. This same +artist, with an almost limitless repertoire and a reputation no new +successes could enhance, recently risked all to sing what he considered a +higher class of music, infinitely more fatiguing to his voice, because he +was impelled onward by the ideal that forces genius to constant +improvement and development of its powers. + +What the people who meet these artists occasionally at a private concert +or behind the scenes during the intense strain of a representation, take +too readily for monumental egoism and conceit, is, the greater part of +the time, merely the desire for a sustaining word, a longing for the +stimulant of praise. + +All actors and singers are but big children, and must be humored and +petted like children when you wish them to do their best. It is +necessary for them to feel in touch with their audiences; to be assured +that they are not falling below the high ideals formed for their work. + +Some winters ago a performance at the opera nearly came to a standstill +because an all-conquering soprano was found crying in her dressing-room. +After many weary moments of consolation and questioning, it came out that +she felt quite sure she no longer had any talent. One of the other +singers had laughed at her voice, and in consequence there was nothing +left to live for. A half-hour later, owing to judicious "treatment," she +was singing gloriously and bowing her thanks to thunders of applause. + +Rather than blame this divine discontent that has made man what he is to- +day, let us glorify and envy it, pitying the while the frail mortal +vessels it consumes with its flame. No adulation can turn such natures +from their goal, and in the hour of triumph the slave is always at their +side to whisper the word of warning. This discontent is the leaven that +has raised the whole loaf of dull humanity to better things and higher +efforts, those privileged to feel it are the suns that illuminate our +system. If on these luminaries observers have discovered spots, it is +well to remember that these blemishes are but the defects of their +qualities, and better far than the total eclipse that shrouds so large a +part of humanity in colorless complacency. + +It will never be known how many master-pieces have been lost to the world +because at the critical moment a friend has not been at hand with the +stimulant of sympathy and encouragement needed by an overworked, +straining artist who was beginning to lose confidence in himself; to +soothe his irritated nerves with the balm of praise, and take his poor +aching head on a friendly shoulder and let him sob out there all his +doubt and discouragement. + +So let us not be niggardly or ungenerous in meting out to struggling +fellow-beings their share, and perchance a little more than their share +of approbation and applause, poor enough return, after all, for the +pleasure their labors have procured us. What adequate compensation can +we mete out to an author for the hours of delight and self-forgetfulness +his talent has brought to us in moments of loneliness, illness, or grief? +What can pay our debt to a painter who has fixed on canvas the face we +love? + +The little return that it is in our power to make for all the joy these +gifted fellow-beings bring into our lives is (closing our eyes to minor +imperfections) to warmly applaud them as they move upward, along their +stony path. + + + + +No. 8--Slouch + + +I should like to see, in every school-room of our growing country, in +every business office, at the railway stations, and on street corners, +large placards placed with "Do not slouch" printed thereon in distinct +and imposing characters. If ever there was a tendency that needed +nipping in the bud (I fear the bud is fast becoming a full-blown flower), +it is this discouraging national failing. + +Each year when I return from my spring wanderings, among the benighted +and effete nations of the Old World, on whom the untravelled American +looks down from the height of his superiority, I am struck anew by the +contrast between the trim, well-groomed officials left behind on one side +of the ocean and the happy-go-lucky, slouching individuals I find on the +other. + +As I ride up town this unpleasant impression deepens. In the "little +Mother Isle" I have just left, bus-drivers have quite a coaching air, +with hat and coat of knowing form. They sport flowers in their button- +holes and salute other bus-drivers, when they meet, with a twist of whip +and elbow refreshingly correct, showing that they take pride in their +calling, and have been at some pains to turn themselves out as smart in +appearance as finances would allow. + +Here, on the contrary, the stage and cab drivers I meet seem to be under +a blight, and to have lost all interest in life. They lounge on the box, +their legs straggling aimlessly, one hand holding the reins, the other +hanging dejectedly by the side. Yet there is little doubt that these +heartbroken citizens are earning double what their London _confreres_ +gain. The shadow of the national peculiarity is over them. + +When I get to my rooms, the elevator boy is reclining in the lift, and +hardly raises his eye-lids as he languidly manoeuvres the rope. I have +seen that boy now for months, but never when his boots and clothes were +brushed or when his cravat was not riding proudly above his collar. On +occasions I have offered him pins, which he took wearily, doubtless +because it was less trouble than to refuse. The next day, however, his +cravat again rode triumphant, mocking my efforts to keep it in its place. +His hair, too, has been a cause of wonder to me. How does he manage to +have it always so long and so unkempt? More than once, when expecting +callers, I have bribed him to have it cut, but it seemed to grow in the +night, back to its poetic profusion. + +In what does this noble disregard for appearances which characterizes +American men originate? Our climate, as some suggest, or discouragement +at not all being millionaires? It more likely comes from an absence with +us of the military training that abroad goes so far toward licking young +men into shape. + +I shall never forget the surprise on the face of a French statesman to +whom I once expressed my sympathy for his country, laboring under the +burden of so vast a standing army. He answered: + +"The financial burden is doubtless great; but you have others. Witness +your pension expenditures. With us the money drawn from the people is +used in such a way as to be of inestimable value to them. We take the +young hobbledehoy farm-hand or mechanic, ignorant, mannerless, uncleanly +as he may be, and turn him out at the end of three years with his +regiment, self-respecting and well-mannered, with habits of cleanliness +and obedience, having acquired a bearing, and a love of order that will +cling to and serve him all his life. We do not go so far," he added, "as +our English neighbors in drilling men into superb manikins of 'form' and +carriage. Our authorities do not consider it necessary. But we reclaim +youths from the slovenliness of their native village or workshop and make +them tidy and mannerly citizens." + +These remarks came to mind the other day as I watched a group of New +England youths lounging on the steps of the village store, or sitting in +rows on a neighboring fence, until I longed to try if even a judicial +arrangement of tacks, 'business-end up,' on these favorite seats would +infuse any energy into their movements. I came to the conclusion that my +French acquaintance was right, for the only trim-looking men to be seen, +were either veterans of our war or youths belonging to the local militia. +And nowhere does one see finer specimens of humanity than West Point and +Annapolis turn out. + +If any one doubts what kind of men slouching youths develop into, let him +look when he travels, at the dejected appearance of the farmhouses +throughout our land. Surely our rural populations are not so much poorer +than those of other countries. Yet when one compares the dreary homes of +even our well-to-do farmers with the smiling, well-kept hamlets seen in +England or on the Continent, such would seem to be the case. + +If ours were an old and bankrupt nation, this air of discouragement and +decay could not be greater. Outside of the big cities one looks in vain +for some sign of American dash and enterprise in the appearance of our +men and their homes. + +During a journey of over four thousand miles, made last spring as the +guest of a gentleman who knows our country thoroughly, I was impressed +most painfully with this abject air. Never in all those days did we see +a fruit-tree trained on some sunny southern wall, a smiling flower-garden +or carefully clipped hedge. My host told me that hardly the necessary +vegetables are grown, the inhabitants of the West and South preferring +canned food. It is less trouble! + +If you wish to form an idea of the extent to which slouch prevails in our +country, try to start a "village improvement society," and experience, as +others have done, the apathy and ill-will of the inhabitants when you go +about among them and strive to summon some of their local pride to your +aid. + +In the town near which I pass my summers, a large stone, fallen from a +passing dray, lay for days in the middle of the principal street, until I +paid some boys to remove it. No one cared, and the dull-eyed inhabitants +would doubtless be looking at it still but for my impatience. + +One would imagine the villagers were all on the point of moving away (and +they generally are, if they can sell their land), so little interest do +they show in your plans. Like all people who have fallen into bad +habits, they have grown to love their slatternly ways and cling to them, +resenting furiously any attempt to shake them up to energy and reform. + +The farmer has not, however, a monopoly. Slouch seems ubiquitous. Our +railway and steam-boat systems have tried in vain to combat it, and +supplied their employees with a livery (I beg the free and independent +voter's pardon, a uniform!), with but little effect. The inherent +tendency is too strong for the corporations. The conductors still +shuffle along in their spotted garments, the cap on the back of the head, +and their legs anywhere, while they chew gum in defiance of the whole +Board of Directors. + +Go down to Washington, after a visit to the Houses of Parliament or the +Chamber of Deputies, and observe the contrast between the bearing of our +Senators and Representatives and the air of their _confreres_ abroad. Our +law-makers seem trying to avoid every appearance of "smartness." Indeed, +I am told, so great is the prejudice in the United States against a well- +turned-out man that a candidate would seriously compromise his chances of +election who appeared before his constituents in other than the +accustomed shabby frock-coat, unbuttoned and floating, a pot hat, no +gloves, as much doubtfully white shirt-front as possible, and a wisp of +black silk for a tie; and if he can exhibit also a chin-whisker, his +chances of election are materially increased. + +Nothing offends an eye accustomed to our native _laisser aller_ so much +as a well-brushed hat and shining boots. When abroad, it is easy to spot +a compatriot as soon and as far as you can see one, by his graceless +gait, a cross between a lounge and a shuffle. In reading-, or dining- +room, he is the only man whose spine does not seem equal to its work, so +he flops and straggles until, for the honor of your land, you long to +shake him and set him squarely on his legs. + +No amount of reasoning can convince me that outward slovenliness is not a +sign of inward and moral supineness. A neglected exterior generally +means a lax moral code. The man who considers it too much trouble to sit +erect can hardly have given much time to his tub or his toilet. Having +neglected his clothes, he will neglect his manners, and between morals +and manners we know the tie is intimate. + +In the Orient a new reign is often inaugurated by the construction of a +mosque. Vast expense is incurred to make it as splendid as possible. +But, once completed, it is never touched again. Others are built by +succeeding sovereigns, but neither thought nor treasure is ever expended +on the old ones. When they can no longer be used, they are abandoned, +and fall into decay. The same system seems to prevail among our private +owners and corporations. Streets are paved, lamp-posts erected, store- +fronts carefully adorned, but from the hour the workman puts his +finishing touch upon them they are abandoned to the hand of fate. The +mud may cake up knee-deep, wind and weather work their own sweet will, it +is no one's business to interfere. + +When abroad one of my amusements has been of an early morning to watch +Paris making its toilet. The streets are taking a bath, liveried +attendants are blacking the boots of the lamp-posts and +newspaper-_kiosques_, the shop-fronts are being shaved and having their +hair curled, cafe's and restaurants are putting on clean shirts and tying +their cravats smartly before their many mirrors. By the time the world +is up and about, the whole city, smiling freshly from its matutinal tub, +is ready to greet it gayly. + +It is this attention to detail that gives to Continental cities their air +of cheerfulness and thrift, and the utter lack of it that impresses +foreigners so painfully on arriving at our shores. + +It has been the fashion to laugh at the dude and his high collar, at the +darky in his master's cast-off clothes, aping style and fashion. Better +the dude, better the colored dandy, better even the Bowery "tough" with +his affected carriage, for they at least are reaching blindly out after +something better than their surroundings, striving after an ideal, and +are in just so much the superiors of the foolish souls who mock +them--better, even misguided efforts, than the ignoble stagnant quagmire +of slouch into which we seem to be slowly descending. + + + + +No. 9--Social Suggestion + + +The question of how far we are unconsciously influenced by people and +surroundings, in our likes and dislikes, our opinions, and even in our +pleasures and intimate tastes, is a delicate and interesting one, for the +line between success and failure in the world, as on the stage or in most +of the professions, is so narrow and depends so often on what humor one's +"public" happen to be in at a particular moment, that the subject is +worthy of consideration. + +Has it never happened to you, for instance, to dine with friends and go +afterwards in a jolly humor to the play which proved so delightful that +you insist on taking your family immediately to see it; when to your +astonishment you discover that it is neither clever nor amusing, on the +contrary rather dull. Your family look at you in amazement and wonder +what you had seen to admire in such an asinine performance. There was a +case of suggestion! You had been influenced by your friends and had +shared their opinions. The same thing occurs on a higher scale when one +is raised out of one's self by association with gifted and original +people, a communion with more cultivated natures which causes you to +discover and appreciate a thousand hidden beauties in literature, art or +music that left to yourself, you would have failed to notice. Under +these circumstances you will often be astonished at the point and +piquancy of your own conversation. This is but too true of a number of +subjects. + +We fondly believe our opinions and convictions to be original, and with +innocent conceit, imagine that we have formed them for ourselves. The +illusion of being unlike other people is a common vanity. Beware of the +man who asserts such a claim. He is sure to be a bore and will serve up +to you, as his own, a muddle of ideas and opinions which he has absorbed +like a sponge from his surroundings. + +No place is more propitious for studying this curious phenomenon, than +behind the scenes of a theatre, the last few nights before a first +performance. The whole company is keyed up to a point of mutual +admiration that they are far from feeling generally. "The piece is +charming and sure to be a success." The author and the interpreters of +his thoughts are in complete communion. The first night comes. The +piece is a failure! Drop into the greenroom then and you will find an +astonishing change has taken place. The Star will take you into a corner +and assert that, she "always knew the thing could not go, it was too +imbecile, with such a company, it was folly to expect anything else." The +author will abuse the Star and the management. The whole troupe is +frankly disconcerted, like people aroused out of a hypnotic sleep, +wondering what they had seen in the play to admire. + +In the social world we are even more inconsistent, accepting with +tameness the most astonishing theories and opinions. Whole circles will +go on assuring each other how clever Miss So-and-So is, or, how beautiful +they think someone else. Not because these good people are any cleverer, +or more attractive than their neighbors, but simply because it is in the +air to have these opinions about them. To such an extent does this hold +good, that certain persons are privileged to be vulgar and rude, to say +impertinent things and make remarks that would ostracize a less fortunate +individual from the polite world for ever; society will only smilingly +shrug its shoulders and say: "It is only Mr. So-and-So's way." It is +useless to assert that in cases like these, people are in possession of +their normal senses. They are under influences of which they are +perfectly unconscious. + +Have you ever seen a piece guyed? Few sadder sights exist, the human +being rarely getting nearer the brute than when engaged in this +amusement. Nothing the actor or actress can do will satisfy the public. +Men who under ordinary circumstances would be incapable of insulting a +woman, will whistle and stamp and laugh, at an unfortunate girl who is +doing her utmost to amuse them. A terrible example of this was given two +winters ago at one of our concert halls, when a family of Western singers +were subjected to absolute ill-treatment at the hands of the public. The +young girls were perfectly sincere, in their rude way, but this did not +prevent men from offering them every insult malice could devise, and +making them a target for every missile at hand. So little does the +public think for itself in cases like this, that at the opening of the +performance had some well-known person given the signal for applause, the +whole audience would, in all probability, have been delighted and made +the wretched sisters a success. + +In my youth it was the fashion to affect admiration for the Italian +school of painting and especially for the great masters of the +Renaissance. Whole families of perfectly inartistic English and +Americans might then he heard conscientiously admiring the ceiling of the +Sistine Chapel or Leonardo's Last Supper (Botticelli had not been +invented then) in the choicest guide-book language. + +When one considers the infinite knowledge of technique required to +understand the difficulties overcome by the giants of the Renaissance and +to appreciate the intrinsic qualities of their creations, one asks one's +self in wonder what our parents admired in those paintings, and what +tempted them to bring home and adorn their houses with such dreadful +copies of their favorites. For if they appreciated the originals they +never would have bought the copies, and if the copies pleased them, they +must have been incapable of enjoying the originals. Yet all these people +thought themselves perfectly sincere. To-day you will see the same thing +going on before the paintings of Claude Monet and Besnard, the same +admiration expressed by people who, you feel perfectly sure, do not +realize why these works of art are superior and can no more explain to +you why they think as they do than the sheep that follow each other +through a hole in a wall, can give a reason for their actions. + +Dress and fashion in clothes are subjects above all others, where the +ineptitude of the human mind is most evident. Can it be explained in any +other way, why the fashions of yesterday always appear so hideous to +us,--almost grotesque? Take up an old album of photographs and glance +over the faded contents. Was there ever anything so absurd? Look at the +top hats men wore, and at the skirts of the women! + +The mother of a family said to me the other day: "When I recall the way +in which girls were dressed in my youth, I wonder how any of us ever got +a husband." + +Study a photograph of the Empress Eugenie, that supreme arbiter of +elegance and grace. Oh! those bunchy hooped skirts! That awful India +shawl pinned off the shoulders, and the bonnet perched on a roll of hair +in the nape of the neck! What were people thinking of at that time? Were +they lunatics to deform in this way the beautiful lines of the human body +which it should be the first object of toilet to enhance, or were they +only lacking in the artistic sense? Nothing of the kind. And what is +more, they were convinced that the real secret of beauty in dress had +been discovered by them; that past fashions were absurd, and that the +future could not improve on their creations. The sculptors and painters +of that day (men of as great talent as any now living), were enthusiastic +in reproducing those monstrosities in marble or on canvas, and authors +raved about the ideal grace with which a certain beauty draped her shawl. + +Another marked manner in which we are influenced by circumambient +suggestion, is in the transient furore certain games and pastimes create. +We see intelligent people so given over to this influence as barely to +allow themselves time to eat and sleep, begrudging the hours thus stolen +from their favorite amusement. + +Ten years ago, tennis occupied every moment of our young people's time; +now golf has transplanted tennis in public favor, which does not prove, +however, that the latter is the better game, but simply that compelled by +the accumulated force of other people's opinions, youths and maidens, old +duffers and mature spinsters are willing to pass many hours daily in all +kinds of weather, solemnly following an indian-rubber ball across ten- +acre lots. + +If you suggest to people who are laboring under the illusion they are +amusing themselves that the game, absorbing so much of their attention, +is not as exciting as tennis nor as clever in combinations as croquet, +that in fact it would be quite as amusing to roll an empty barrel several +times around a plowed field, they laugh at you in derision and instantly +put you down in their profound minds as a man who does not understand +"sport." + +Yet these very people were tennis-mad twenty years ago and had night come +to interrupt a game of croquet would have ordered lanterns lighted in +order to finish the match so enthralling were its intricacies. + +Everybody has known how to play _Bezique_ in this country for years, yet +within the last eighteen months, whole circles of our friends have been +seized with a midsummer madness and willingly sat glued to a card-table +through long hot afternoons and again after dinner until day dawned on +their folly. + +Certain _Memoires_ of Louis Fifteenth's reign tell of an "unravelling" +mania that developed at his court. It began by some people fraying out +old silks to obtain the gold and silver threads from worn-out stuffs; +this occupation soon became the rage, nothing could restrain the delirium +of destruction, great ladies tore priceless tapestries from their walls +and brocades from their furniture, in order to unravel those materials +and as the old stock did not suffice for the demand thousands were spent +on new brocades and velvets, which were instantly destroyed, +entertainments were given where unravelling was the only amusement +offered, the entire court thinking and talking of nothing else for +months. + +What is the logical deduction to be drawn from all this? Simply that +people do not see with their eyes or judge with their understandings; +that an all-pervading hypnotism, an ambient suggestion, at times envelops +us taking from people all free will, and replacing it with the taste and +judgment of the moment. + +The number of people is small in each generation, who are strong enough +to rise above their surroundings and think for themselves. The rest are +as dry leaves on a stream. They float along and turn gayly in the +eddies, convinced all the time (as perhaps are the leaves) that they act +entirely from their own volition and that their movements are having a +profound influence on the direction and force of the current. + + + + +No. 10--Bohemia + + +Lunching with a talented English comedian and his wife the other day, the +conversation turned on Bohemia, the evasive no-man's-land that Thackeray +referred to, in so many of his books, and to which he looked back +lovingly in his later years, when, as he said, he had forgotten the road +to Prague. + +The lady remarked: "People have been more than kind to us here in New +York. We have dined and supped out constantly, and have met with +gracious kindness, such as we can never forget. But so far we have not +met a single painter, or author, or sculptor, or a man who has explored a +corner of the earth. Neither have we had the good luck to find ourselves +in the same room with Tesla or Rehan, Edison or Drew. We shall regret so +much when back in England and are asked about your people of talent, +being obliged to say, 'We never met any of them.' Why is it? We have +not been in any one circle, and have pitched our tents in many cities, +during our tours over here, but always with the same result. We read +your American authors as much as, if not more than, our own. The names +of dozens of your discoverers and painters are household words in +England. When my husband planned his first tour over here my one idea +was, 'How nice it will be! Now I shall meet those delightful people of +whom I have heard so much.' The disappointment has been complete. Never +one have I seen." + +I could not but feel how all too true were the remarks of this +intelligent visitor, remembering how quick the society of London is to +welcome a new celebrity or original character, how a place is at once +made for him at every hospitable board, a permanent one to which he is +expected to return; and how no Continental entertainment is considered +complete without some bright particular star to shine in the firmament. + +"Lion-hunting," I hear my reader say with a sneer. That may be, but it +makes society worth the candle, which it rarely is over here. I realized +what I had often vaguely felt before, that the Bohemia the English lady +was looking for was not to be found in this country, more's the pity. Not +that the elements are lacking. Far from it, (for even more than in +London should we be able to combine such a society), but perhaps from a +misconception of the true idea of such a society, due probably to Henry +Murger's dreary book _Scenes de la vie de Boheme_ which is chargeable +with the fact that a circle of this kind evokes in the mind of most +Americans visions of a scrubby, poorly-fed and less-washed community, a +world they would hardly dare ask to their tables for fear of some +embarrassing unconventionality of conduct or dress. + +Yet that can hardly be the reason, for even in Murger or Paul de Kock, at +their worst, the hero is still a gentleman, and even when he borrows a +friend's coat, it is to go to a great house and among people of rank. +Besides, we are becoming too cosmopolitan, and wander too constantly over +this little globe, not to have learned that the Bohemia of 1830 is as +completely a thing of the past as a _grisette_ or a glyphisodon. It +disappeared with Gavarni and the authors who described it. Although we +have kept the word, its meaning has gradually changed until it has come +to mean something difficult to define, a will-o'-the-wisp, which one +tries vainly to grasp. With each decade it has put on a new form and +changed its centre, the one definite fact being that it combines the +better elements of several social layers. + +Drop in, if you are in Paris and know the way, at one of Madeleine +Lemaire's informal evenings in her studio. There you may find the Prince +de Ligne, chatting with Rejane or Coquelin; or Henri d'Orleans, just back +from an expedition into Africa. A little further on, Saint-Saens will be +running over the keys, preparing an accompaniment for one of Madame de +Tredern's songs. The Princess Mathilde (that passionate lover of art) +will surely be there, and--but it is needless to particularize. + +Cross the Channel, and get yourself asked to one of Irving's choice +suppers after the play. You will find the bar, the stage, and the pulpit +represented there, a "happy family" over which the "Prince" often +presides, smoking cigar after cigar, until the tardy London daylight +appears to break up the entertainment. + +For both are centres where the gifted and the travelled meet the great of +the social world, on a footing of perfect equality, and where, if any +prestige is accorded, it is that of brains. When you have seen these +places and a dozen others like them, you will realize what the actor's +wife had in her mind. + +Now, let me whisper to you why I think such circles do not exist in this +country. In the first place, we are still too provincial in this big +city of ours. New York always reminds me of a definition I once heard of +California fruit: "Very large, with no particular flavor." We are like a +boy, who has had the misfortune to grow too quickly and look like a man, +but whose mind has not kept pace with his body. What he knows is +undigested and chaotic, while his appearance makes you expect more of him +than he can give--hence disappointment. + +Our society is yet in knickerbockers, and has retained all sorts of +littlenesses and prejudices which older civilizations have long since +relegated to the mental lumber room. An equivalent to this point of view +you will find in England or France only in the smaller "cathedral" +cities, and even there the old aristocrats have the courage of their +opinions. Here, where everything is quite frankly on a money basis, and +"positions" are made and lost like a fortune, by a turn of the market, +those qualities which are purely mental, and on which it is hard to put a +practical value, are naturally at a discount. We are quite ready to pay +for the best. Witness our private galleries and the opera, but we say, +like the parvenu in Emile Augier's delightful comedy _Le Gendre de M. +Poirier_, "Patronize art? Of course! But the artists? Never!" And +frankly, it would be too much, would it not, to expect a family only half +a generation away from an iron foundry, or a mine, to be willing to +receive Irving or Bernhardt on terms of perfect equality? + +As it would be unjust to demand a mature mind in the overgrown boy, it is +useless to hope for delicate tact and social feeling from the parvenu. To +be gracious and at ease with all classes and professions, one must be +perfectly sure of one's own position, and with us few feel this security, +it being based on too frail a foundation, a crisis in the "street" going +a long way towards destroying it. + +Of course I am generalizing and doubt not that in many cultivated homes +the right spirit exists, but unfortunately these are not the centres +which give the tone to our "world." Lately at one of the most splendid +houses in this city a young Italian tenor had been engaged to sing. When +he had finished he stood alone, unnoticed, unspoken to for the rest of +the evening. He had been paid to sing. "What more, in common sense, +could he want?" thought the "world," without reflecting that it was +probably not the _tenor_ who lost by that arrangement. It needs a +delicate hand to hold the reins over the backs of such a fine-mouthed +community as artists and singers form. They rarely give their best when +singing or performing in a hostile atmosphere. + +A few years ago when a fancy-dress ball was given at the Academy of +Design, the original idea was to have it an artists' ball; the community +of the brush were, however, approached with such a complete lack of tact +that, with hardly an exception, they held aloof, and at the ball shone +conspicuous by their absence. + +At present in this city I know of but two hospitable firesides where you +are sure to meet the best the city holds of either foreign or native +talent. The one is presided over by the wife of a young composer, and +the other, oddly enough, by two unmarried ladies. An invitation to a +dinner or a supper at either of these houses is as eagerly sought after +and as highly prized in the great world as it is by the Bohemians, though +neither "salon" is open regularly. + +There is still hope for us, and I already see signs of better things. +Perhaps, when my English friend returns in a few years, we may be able to +prove to her that we have found the road to Prague. + + + + +No. 11--Social Exiles + + +Balzac, in his _Comedie Humaine_, has reviewed with a master-hand almost +every phase of the Social World of Paris down to 1850 and Thackeray left +hardly a corner of London High Life unexplored; but so great have been +the changes (progress, its admirers call it,) since then, that, could +Balzac come back to his beloved Paris, he would feel like a foreigner +there; and Thackeray, who was among us but yesterday, would have +difficulty in finding his bearings in the sea of the London world to-day. + +We have changed so radically that even a casual observer cannot help +being struck by the difference. Among other most significant "phenomena" +has appeared a phase of life that not only neither of these great men +observed (for the very good reason that it had not appeared in their +time), but which seems also to have escaped the notice of the writers of +our own day, close observers as they are of any new development. I mean +the class of Social Exiles, pitiable wanderers from home and country, who +haunt the Continent, and are to be found (sad little colonies) in out-of- +the-way corners of almost every civilized country. + +To know much of this form of modern life, one must have been a wanderer, +like myself, and have pitched his tent in many queer places; for they are +shy game and not easily raised, frequenting mostly quiet old cities like +Versailles and Florence, or inexpensive watering-places where their +meagre incomes become affluence by contrast. The first thought on +dropping in on such a settlement is, "How in the world did these people +ever drift here?" It is simple enough and generally comes about in this +way: + +The father of a wealthy family dies. The fortune turns out to be less +than was expected. The widow and children decide to go abroad for a year +or so, during their period of mourning, partially for distraction, and +partially (a fact which is not spoken of) because at home they would be +forced to change their way of living to a simpler one, and that is hard +to do, just at first. Later they think it will be quite easy. So the +family emigrates, and after a little sight-seeing, settles in Dresden or +Tours, casually at first, in a hotel. If there are young children they +are made the excuse. "The languages are so important!" Or else one of +the daughters develops a taste for music, or a son takes up the study of +art. In a year or two, before a furnished apartment is taken, the idea +of returning is discussed, but abandoned "for the present." They begin +vaguely to realize how difficult it will be to take life up again at +home. During all this time their income (like everything else when the +owners are absent) has been slowly but surely disappearing, making the +return each year more difficult. Finally, for economy, an unfurnished +apartment is taken. They send home for bits of furniture and family +belongings, and gradually drop into the great army of the expatriated. + +Oh, the pathos of it! One who has not seen these poor stranded waifs in +their self-imposed exile, with eyes turned towards their native land, +cannot realize all the sadness and loneliness they endure, rarely +adopting the country of their residence but becoming more firmly American +as the years go by. The home papers and periodicals are taken, the +American church attended, if there happens to be one; the English chapel, +if there is not. Never a French church! In their hearts they think it +almost irreverent to read the service in French. The acquaintance of a +few fellow-exiles is made and that of a half-dozen English families, +mothers and daughters and a younger son or two, whom the ferocious +primogeniture custom has cast out of the homes of their childhood to +economize on the Continent. + +I have in my mind a little settlement of this kind at Versailles, which +was a type. The formal old city, fallen from its grandeur, was a +singularly appropriate setting to the little comedy. There the modest +purses of the exiles found rents within their reach, the quarters vast +and airy. The galleries and the park afforded a diversion, and then +Paris, dear Paris, the American Mecca, was within reach. At the time I +knew it, the colony was fairly prosperous, many of its members living in +the two or three principal _pensions_, the others in apartments of their +own. They gave feeble little entertainments among themselves, +card-parties and teas, and dined about with each other at their +respective _tables d'hote_, even knowing a stray Frenchman or two, whom +the quest of a meal had tempted out of their native fastnesses as it does +the wolves in a hard winter. Writing and receiving letters from America +was one of the principal occupations, and an epistle descriptive of a +particular event at home went the rounds, and was eagerly read and +discussed. + +The merits of the different _pensions_ also formed a subject of vital +interest. The advantages and disadvantages of these rival establishments +were, as a topic, never exhausted. _Madame une telle_ gave five o'clock +tea, included in the seven francs a day, but her rival gave one more meat +course at dinner and her coffee was certainly better, while a third +undoubtedly had a nicer set of people. No one here at home can realize +the importance these matters gradually assume in the eyes of the exiles. +Their slender incomes have to be so carefully handled to meet the strain +of even this simple way of living, if they are to show a surplus for a +little trip to the seashore in the summer months, that an extra franc a +day becomes a serious consideration. + +Every now and then a family stronger-minded than the others, or with +serious reasons for returning home (a daughter to bring out or a son to +put into business), would break away from its somnolent surroundings and +re-cross the Atlantic, alternating between hope and fear. It is here +that a sad fate awaits these modern Rip Van Winkles. They find their +native cities changed beyond recognition. (For we move fast in these +days.) The mother gets out her visiting list of ten years before and is +thunderstruck to find that it contains chiefly names of the "dead, the +divorced, and defaulted." The waves of a decade have washed over her +place and the world she once belonged to knows her no more. The leaders +of her day on whose aid she counted have retired from the fray. Younger, +and alas! unknown faces sit in the opera boxes and around the dinner +tables where before she had found only friends. After a feeble little +struggle to get again into the "swim," the family drifts back across the +ocean into the quiet back water of a continental town, and goes circling +around with the other twigs and dry leaves, moral flotsam and jetsam, +thrown aside by the great rush of the outside world. + +For the parents the life is not too sad. They have had their day, and +are, perhaps, a little glad in their hearts of a quiet old age, away from +the heat and sweat of the battle; but for the younger generation it is +annihilation. Each year their circle grows smaller. Death takes away +one member after another of the family, until one is left alone in a +foreign land with no ties around her, or with her far-away "home," the +latter more a name now than a reality. + +A year or two ago I was taking luncheon with our consul at his primitive +villa, an hour's ride from the city of Tangier, a ride made on donkey- +back, as no roads exist in that sunny land. After our coffee and cigars, +he took me a half-hour's walk into the wilderness around him to call on +his nearest neighbors, whose mode of existence seemed a source of anxiety +to him. I found myself in the presence of two American ladies, the +younger being certainly not less than seventy-five. To my astonishment I +found they had been living there some thirty years, since the death of +their parents, in an isolation and remoteness impossible to describe, in +an Arab house, with native servants, "the world forgetting, by the world +forgot." Yet these ladies had names well known in New York fifty years +ago. + +The glimpse I had of their existence made me thoughtful as I rode home in +the twilight, across a suburb none too safe for strangers. What had the +future in store for those two? Or, worse still, for the survivor of +those two? In contrast, I saw a certain humble "home" far away in +America, where two old ladies were ending their lives surrounded by +loving friends and relations, honored and cherished and guarded tenderly +from the rude world. + +In big cities like Paris and Rome there is another class of the +expatriated, the wealthy who have left their homes in a moment of pique +after the failure of some social or political ambition; and who find in +these centres the recognition refused them at home and for which their +souls thirsted. + +It is not to these I refer, although it is curious to see a group of +people living for years in a country of which they, half the time, do not +speak the language (beyond the necessities of housekeeping and shopping), +knowing but few of its inhabitants, and seeing none of the society of the +place, their acquaintance rarely going beyond that equivocal, hybrid +class that surrounds rich "strangers" and hangs on to the outer edge of +the _grand monde_. One feels for this latter class merely contempt, but +one's pity is reserved for the former. What object lessons some lives on +the Continent would be to impatient souls at home, who feel discontented +with their surroundings, and anxious to break away and wander abroad! Let +them think twice before they cut the thousand ties it has taken a +lifetime to form. Better monotony at your own fireside, my friends, +where at the worst, you are known and have your place, no matter how +small, than an old age among strangers. + + + + +No. 12--"Seven Ages" of Furniture + + +The progress through life of active-minded Americans is apt to be a +series of transformations. At each succeeding phase of mental +development, an old skin drops from their growing intelligence, and they +assimilate the ideas and tastes of their new condition, with a facility +and completeness unknown to other nations. + +One series of metamorphoses particularly amusing to watch is, that of an +observant, receptive daughter of Uncle Sam who, aided and followed (at a +distance) by an adoring husband, gradually develops her excellent brain, +and rises through fathoms of self-culture and purblind experiment, to the +surface of dilettantism and connoisseurship. One can generally detect +the exact stage of evolution such a lady has reached by the bent of her +conversation, the books she is reading, and, last but not least, by her +material surroundings; no outward and visible signs reflecting inward and +spiritual grace so clearly as the objects people collect around them for +the adornment of their rooms, or the way in which those rooms are +decorated. + +A few years ago, when a young man and his bride set up housekeeping on +their own account, the "old people" of both families seized the +opportunity to unload on the beginners (under the pretence of helping +them along) a quantity of furniture and belongings that had (as the +shopkeepers say) "ceased to please" their original owners. The narrow +quarters of the tyros are encumbered by ungainly sofas and arm-chairs, +most probably of carved rosewood. _Etageres_ of the same lugubrious +material grace the corners of their tiny drawing-room, the bits of mirror +inserted between the shelves distorting the image of the owners into +headless or limbless phantoms. Half of their little dining-room is +filled with a black-walnut sideboard, ingeniously contrived to take up as +much space as possible and hold nothing, its graceless top adorned with a +stag's head carved in wood and imitation antlers. + +The novices in their innocence live contented amid their hideous +surroundings for a year or two, when the wife enters her second epoch, +which, for want of a better word, we will call the Japanese period. The +grim furniture gradually disappears under a layer of silk and gauze +draperies, the bare walls blossom with paper umbrellas, fans are nailed +in groups promiscuously, wherever an empty space offends her eye. Bows +of ribbon are attached to every possible protuberance of the furniture. +Even the table service is not spared. I remember dining at a house in +this stage of its artistic development, where the marrow bones that +formed one course of the dinner appeared each with a coquettish little +bow-knot of pink ribbon around its neck. + +Once launched on this sea of adornment, the housewife soon loses her +bearings and decorates indiscriminately. Her old evening dresses serve +to drape the mantelpieces, and she passes every spare hour embroidering, +braiding, or fringing some material to adorn her rooms. At Christmas her +friends contribute specimens of their handiwork to the collection. + +The view of other houses and other decorations before long introduces the +worm of discontent into the blossom of our friend's contentment. The +fruit of her labors becomes tasteless on her lips. As the finances of +the family are satisfactory, the re-arrangement of the parlor floor is +(at her suggestion) confided to a firm of upholsterers, who make a clean +sweep of the rosewood and the bow-knots, and retire, after some months of +labor, leaving the delighted wife in possession of a suite of rooms +glittering with every monstrosity that an imaginative tradesman, spurred +on by unlimited credit, could devise. + +The wood work of the doors and mantels is an intricate puzzle of inlaid +woods, the ceilings are panelled and painted in complicated designs. The +"parlor" is provided with a complete set of neat, old-gold satin +furniture, puffed at its angles with peacock-colored plush. + +The monumental folding doors between the long, narrow rooms are draped +with the same chaste combination of stuffs. + +The dining-room blazes with a gold and purple wall paper, set off by +ebonized wood work and furniture. The conscientious contractor has +neglected no corner. Every square inch of the ceilings, walls, and +floors has been carved, embossed, stencilled, or gilded into a +bewildering monotony. + +The husband, whose affairs are rapidly increasing on his hands, has no +time to attend to such insignificant details as house decoration, the +wife has perfect confidence in the taste of the firm employed. So at the +suggestion of the latter, and in order to complete the beauty of the +rooms, a Bouguereau, a Toulmouche and a couple of Schreyers are bought, +and a number of modern French bronzes scattered about on the multicolored +cabinets. Then, at last, the happy owners of all this splendor open +their doors to the admiration of their friends. + +About the time the peacock plush and the gilding begin to show signs of +wear and tear, rumors of a fresh fashion in decoration float across from +England, and the new gospel of the beautiful according to Clarence Cook +is first preached to an astonished nation. + +The fortune of our couple continuing to develop with pleasing rapidity, +the building of a country house is next decided upon. A friend of the +husband, who has recently started out as an architect, designs them a +picturesque residence without a straight line on its exterior or a square +room inside. This house is done up in strict obedience to the teachings +of the new sect. The dining-room is made about as cheerful as the +entrance to a family vault. The rest of the house bears a close +resemblance to an ecclesiastical junk shop. The entrance hall is filled +with what appears to be a communion table in solid oak, and the massive +chairs and settees of the parlor suggest the withdrawing room of Rowena, +aesthetic shades of momie-cloth drape deep-set windows, where anaemic and +disjointed females in stained glass pluck conventional roses. + +To each of these successive transitions the husband has remained +obediently and tranquilly indifferent. He has in his heart considered +them all equally unfitting and uncomfortable and sighed in regretful +memory of a deep, old-fashioned arm-chair that sheltered his after-dinner +naps in the early rosewood period. So far he has been as clay in the +hands of his beloved wife, but the anaemic ladies and the communion table +are the last drop that causes his cup to overflow. He revolts and begins +to take matters into his own hands with the result that the household +enters its fifth incarnation under his guidance, during which everything +is painted white and all the wall-papers are a vivid scarlet. The family +sit on bogus Chippendale and eat off blue and white china. + +With the building of their grand new house near the park the couple rise +together into the sixth cycle of their development. Having travelled and +studied the epochs by this time, they can tell a Louis XIV. from a Louis +XV. room, and recognize that mahogany and brass sphinxes denote furniture +of the Empire. This newly acquired knowledge is, however, vague and +hazy. They have no confidence in themselves, so give over the fitting of +their principal floors to the New York branch of a great French house. +Little is talked of now but periods, plans, and elevations. Under the +guidance of the French firm, they acquire at vast expense, faked +reproductions as historic furniture. + +The spacious rooms are sticky with new gilding, and the flowered brocades +of the hangings and furniture crackle to the touch. The rooms were not +designed by the architect to receive any special kind of "treatment." +Immense folding-doors unite the salons, and windows open anywhere. The +decorations of the walls have been applied like a poultice, regardless of +the proportions of the rooms and the distribution of the spaces. + +Building and decorating are, however, the best of educations. The +husband, freed at last from his business occupations, finds in this new +study an interest and a charm unknown to him before. He and his wife are +both vaguely disappointed when their resplendent mansion is finished, +having already outgrown it, and recognize that in spite of correct +detail, their costly apartments no more resemble the stately and simple +salons seen abroad than the cabin of a Fall River boat resembles the +_Galerie des Glaces_ at Versailles. The humiliating knowledge that they +are all wrong breaks upon them, as it is doing on hundreds of others, at +the same time as the desire to know more and appreciate better the +perfect productions of this art. + +A seventh and last step is before them but they know not how to make it. +A surer guide than the upholsterer is, they know, essential, but their +library contains nothing to help them. Others possess the information +they need, yet they are ignorant where to turn for what they require. + +With singular appropriateness a volume treating of this delightful "art" +has this season appeared at Scribner's. "The Decoration of Houses" is +the result of a woman's faultless taste collaborating with a man's +technical knowledge. Its mission is to reveal to the hundreds who have +advanced just far enough to find that they can go no farther alone, +truths lying concealed beneath the surface. It teaches that consummate +taste is satisfied only with a perfected simplicity; that the facades of +a house must be the envelope of the rooms within and adapted to them, as +the rooms are to the habits and requirements of them "that dwell +therein;" that proportion is the backbone of the decorator's art and that +supreme elegance is fitness and moderation; and, above all, that an +attention to architectural principles can alone lead decoration to a +perfect development. + + + + +No. 13--Our Elite and Public Life + + +The complaint is so often heard, and seems so well founded, that there is +a growing inclination, not only among men of social position, but also +among our best and cleverest citizens, to stand aloof from public life, +and this reluctance on their part is so unfortunate, that one feels +impelled to seek out the causes where they must lie, beneath the surface. +At a first glance they are not apparent. Why should not the honor of +representing one's town or locality be as eagerly sought after with us as +it is by English or French men of position? That such is not the case, +however, is evident. + +Speaking of this the other evening, over my after-dinner coffee, with a +high-minded and public-spirited gentleman, who not long ago represented +our country at a European court, he advanced two theories which struck me +as being well worth repeating, and which seemed to account to a certain +extent for this curious abstinence. + +As a first and most important cause, he placed the fact that neither our +national nor (here in New York) our state capital coincides with our +metropolis. In this we differ from England and all the continental +countries. The result is not difficult to perceive. In London, a man of +the world, a business man, or a great lawyer, who represents a locality +in Parliament, can fulfil his mandate and at the same time lead his usual +life among his own set. The lawyer or the business man can follow during +the day his profession, or those affairs on which he depends to support +his family and his position in the world. Then, after dinner (owing to +the peculiar hours adopted for the sittings of Parliament), he can take +his place as a law-maker. If he be a London-born man, he in no way +changes his way of life or that of his family. If, on the contrary, he +be a county magnate, the change he makes is all for the better, as it +takes him and his wife and daughters up to London, the haven of their +longings, and the centre of all sorts of social dissipations and +advancement. + +With us, it is exactly the contrary. As the District of Columbia elects +no one, everybody living in Washington officially is more or less +expatriated, and the social life it offers is a poor substitute for the +circle which most families leave to go there. + +That, however, is not the most important side of the question. Go to any +great lawyer of either New York or Chicago, and propose sending him to +Congress or the Senate. His answer is sure to be, "I cannot afford it. I +know it is an honor, but what is to replace the hundred thousand dollars +a year which my profession brings me in, not to mention that all my +practice would go to pieces during my absence?" Or again, "How should I +dare to propose to my family to leave one of the great centres of the +country to go and vegetate in a little provincial city like Washington? +No, indeed! Public life is out of the question for me!" + +Does any one suppose England would have the class of men she gets in +Parliament, if that body sat at Bristol? + +Until recently the man who occupied the position of Lord Chancellor made +thirty thousand pounds a year by his profession without interfering in +any way with his public duties, and at the present moment a recordership +in London in no wise prevents private practice. Were these gentlemen +Americans, they would be obliged to renounce all hope of professional +income in order to serve their country at its Capital. + +Let us glance for a moment at the other reason. Owing to our laws +(doubtless perfectly reasonable, and which it is not my intention to +criticise,) a man must reside in the place he represents. Here again we +differ from all other constitutional countries. Unfortunately, our +clever young men leave the small towns of their birth and flock up to the +great centres as offering wider fields for their advancement. In +consequence, the local elector finds his choice limited to what is +left--the intellectual skimmed milk, of which the cream has been carried +to New York or other big cities. No country can exist without a +metropolis, and as such a centre by a natural law of assimilation absorbs +the best brains of the country, in other nations it has been found to the +interests of all parties to send down brilliant young men to the +"provinces," to be, in good time, returned by them to the national +assemblies. + +As this is not a political article the simple indication of these two +causes will suffice, without entering into the question of their +reasonableness or of their justice. The social bearing of such a +condition is here the only side of the question under discussion; it is +difficult to over-rate the influence that a man's family exert over his +decisions. + +Political ambition is exceedingly rare among our women of position; when +the American husband is bitten with it, the wife submits to, rather than +abets, his inclinations. In most cases our women are not cosmopolitan +enough to enjoy being transplanted far away from their friends and +relations, even to fill positions of importance and honor. A New York +woman of great frankness and intelligence, who found herself recently in +a Western city under these circumstances, said, in answer to a flattering +remark that "the ladies of the place expected her to become their social +leader," "I don't see anything to lead," thus very plainly expressing her +opinion of the situation. It is hardly fair to expect a woman accustomed +to the life of New York or the foreign capitals, to look forward with +enthusiasm to a term of years passed in Albany, or in Washington. + +In France very much the same state of affairs has been reached by quite a +different route. The aristocracy detest the present government, and it +is not considered "good form" by them to sit in the Chamber of Deputies +or to accept any but diplomatic positions. They condescend to fill the +latter because that entails living away from their own country, as they +feel more at ease in foreign courts than at the Republican receptions of +the Elysee. + +There is a deplorable tendency among our self-styled aristocracy to look +upon their circle as a class apart. They separate themselves more each +year from the life of the country, and affect to smile at any of their +number who honestly wish to be of service to the nation. They, like the +French aristocracy, are perfectly willing, even anxious, to fill +agreeable diplomatic posts at first-class foreign capitals, and are +naively astonished when their offers of service are not accepted with +gratitude by the authorities in Washington. But let a husband propose to +his better half some humble position in the machinery of our government, +and see what the lady's answer will be. + +The opinion prevails among a large class of our wealthy and cultivated +people, that to go into public life is to descend to duties beneath them. +They judge the men who occupy such positions with insulting severity, +classing them in their minds as corrupt and self-seeking, than which +nothing can be more childish or more imbecile. Any observer who has +lived in the different grades of society will quickly renounce the +puerile idea that sporting or intellectual pursuits are alone worthy of a +gentleman's attention. This very political life, which appears unworthy +of their attention to so many men, is, in reality, the great field where +the nations of the world fight out their differences, where the seed is +sown that will ripen later into vast crops of truth and justice. It is +(if rightly regarded and honestly followed) the battle-ground where man's +highest qualities are put to their noblest use--that of working for the +happiness of others. + + + + +No. 14--The Small Summer Hotel + + +We certainly are the most eccentric race on the surface of the globe and +ought to be a delight to the soul of an explorer, so full is our +civilization of contradictions, unexplained habits and curious customs. +It is quite unnecessary for the inquisitive gentlemen who pass their time +prying into other people's affairs and then returning home to write books +about their discoveries, to risk their lives and digestions in long +journeys into Central Africa or to the frozen zones, while so much good +material lies ready to their hands in our own land. The habits of the +"natives" in New England alone might occupy an active mind indefinitely, +offering as interesting problems as any to be solved by penetrating +Central Asia or visiting the man-eating tribes of Australia. + +Perhaps one of our scientific celebrities, before undertaking his next +long voyage, will find time to make observations at home and collect +sufficient data to answer some questions that have long puzzled my +unscientific brain. He would be doing good work. Fame and honors await +the man who can explain why, for instance, sane Americans of the better +class, with money enough to choose their surroundings, should pass so +much of their time in hotels and boarding houses. There must be a reason +for the vogue of these retreats--every action has a cause, however +remote. I shall await with the deepest interest a paper on this subject +from one of our great explorers, untoward circumstances having some time +ago forced me to pass a few days in a popular establishment of this +class. + +During my visit I amused myself by observing the inmates and trying to +discover why they had come there. So far as I could find out, the +greater part of them belonged to our well-to-do class, and when at home +doubtless lived in luxurious houses and were waited on by trained +servants. In the small summer hotel where I met them, they were living +in dreary little ten by twelve foot rooms, containing only the absolute +necessities of existence, a wash-stand, a bureau, two chairs and a bed. +And such a bed! One mattress about four inches thick over squeaking +slats, cotton sheets, so nicely calculated to the size of the bed that +the slightest move on the part of the sleeper would detach them from +their moorings and undo the housemaid's work; two limp, discouraged +pillows that had evidently been "banting," and a few towels a foot long +with a surface like sand-paper, completed the fittings of the room. Baths +were unknown, and hot water was a luxury distributed sparingly by a +capricious handmaiden. It is only fair to add that everything in the +room was perfectly clean, as was the coarse table linen in the dining +room. + +The meals were in harmony with the rooms and furniture, consisting only +of the strict necessities, cooked with a Spartan disregard for such +sybarite foibles as seasoning or dressing. I believe there was a +substantial meal somewhere in the early morning hours, but I never +succeeded in getting down in time to inspect it. By successful bribery, +I induced one of the village belles, who served at table, to bring a cup +of coffee to my room. The first morning it appeared already poured out +in the cup, with sugar and cold milk added at her discretion. At one +o'clock a dinner was served, consisting of soup (occasionally), one meat +dish and attendant vegetables, a meagre dessert, and nothing else. At +half-past six there was an equally rudimentary meal, called "tea," after +which no further food was distributed to the inmates, who all, however, +seemed perfectly contented with this arrangement. In fact they +apparently looked on the act of eating as a disagreeable task, to be +hurried through as soon as possible that they might return to their +aimless rocking and chattering. + +Instead of dinner hour being the feature of the day, uniting people +around an attractive table, and attended by conversation, and the meal +lasting long enough for one's food to be properly eaten, it was rushed +through as though we were all trying to catch a train. Then, when the +meal was over, the boarders relapsed into apathy again. + +No one ever called this hospitable home a boarding-house, for the +proprietor was furious if it was given that name. He also scorned the +idea of keeping a hotel. So that I never quite understood in what +relation he stood toward us. He certainly considered himself our host, +and ignored the financial side of the question severely. In order not to +hurt his feelings by speaking to him of money, we were obliged to get our +bills by strategy from a male subordinate. Mine host and his family were +apparently unaware that there were people under their roof who paid them +for board and lodging. We were all looked upon as guests and +"entertained," and our rights impartially ignored. + +Nothing, I find, is so distinctive of New England as this graceful +veiling of the practical side of life. The landlady always reminded me, +by her manner, of Barrie's description of the bill-sticker's wife who +"cut" her husband when she chanced to meet him "professionally" engaged. +As a result of this extreme detachment from things material, the house +ran itself, or was run by incompetent Irish and negro "help." There were +no bells in the rooms, which simplified the service, and nothing could be +ordered out of meal hours. + +The material defects in board and lodging sink, however, into +insignificance before the moral and social unpleasantness of an +establishment such as this. All ages, all conditions, and all creeds are +promiscuously huddled together. It is impossible to choose whom one +shall know or whom avoid. A horrible burlesque of family life is +enabled, with all its inconveniences and none of its sanctity. People +from different cities, with different interests and standards, are +expected to "chum" together in an intimacy that begins with the eight +o'clock breakfast and ends only when all retire for the night. No +privacy, no isolation is allowed. If you take a book and begin to read +in a remote corner of a parlor or piazza, some idle matron or idiotic +girl will tranquilly invade your poor little bit of privacy and gabble of +her affairs and the day's gossip. There is no escape unless you mount to +your ten-by-twelve cell and sit (like the Premiers of England when they +visit Balmoral) on the bed, to do your writing, for want of any other +conveniences. Even such retirement is resented by the boarders. You are +thought to be haughty and to give yourself airs if you do not sit for +twelve consecutive hours each day in unending conversation with them. + +When one reflects that thousands of our countrymen pass at least one-half +of their lives in these asylums, and that thousands more in America know +no other homes, but move from one hotel to another, while the same outlay +would procure them cosy, cheerful dwellings, it does seem as if these +modern Arabs, Holmes's "Folding Bed-ouins," were gradually returning to +prehistoric habits and would end by eating roots promiscuously in caves. + +The contradiction appears more marked the longer one reflects on the love +of independence and impatience of all restraint that characterize our +race. If such an institution had been conceived by people of the Old +World, accustomed to moral slavery and to a thousand petty tyrannies, it +would not be so remarkable, but that we, of all the races of the earth, +should have created a form of torture unknown to Louis XI. or to the +Spanish Inquisitors, is indeed inexplicable! Outside of this happy land +the institution is unknown. The _pension_ when it exists abroad, is only +an exotic growth for an American market. Among European nations it is +undreamed of; the poorest when they travel take furnished rooms, where +they are served in private, or go to restaurants or _table d'hotes_ for +their meals. In a strictly continental hotel the public parlor does not +exist. People do not travel to make acquaintances, but for health or +recreation, or to improve their minds. The enforced intimacy of our +American family house, with its attendant quarrelling and back-biting, is +an infliction of which Europeans are in happy ignorance. + +One explanation, only, occurs to me, which is that among New England +people, largely descended from Puritan stock, there still lingers some +blind impulse at self-mortification, an hereditary inclination to make +this life as disagreeable as possible by self-immolation. Their +ancestors, we are told by Macaulay, suppressed bull baiting, not because +it hurt the bull, but because it gave pleasure to the people. Here in +New England they refused the Roman dogma of Purgatory and then with +complete inconsistency, invented the boarding-house, in order, doubtless, +to take as much of the joy as possible out of this life, as a preparation +for endless bliss in the next. + + + + +No. 15--A False Start + + +Having had, during a wandering existence, many opportunities of observing +my compatriots away from home and familiar surroundings in various +circles of cosmopolitan society, at foreign courts, in diplomatic life, +or unofficial capacities, I am forced to acknowledge that whereas my +countrywoman invariably assumed her new position with grace and dignity, +my countryman, in the majority of cases, appeared at a disadvantage. + +I take particular pleasure in making this tribute to my "sisters" tact +and wit, as I have been accused of being "hard" on American women, and +some half-humorous criticisms have been taken seriously by +over-susceptible women--doubtless troubled with guilty consciences for +nothing is more exact than the old French proverb, "It is only the truth +that wounds." + +The fact remains clear, however, that American men, as regards polish, +facility in expressing themselves in foreign languages, the arts of +pleasing and entertaining, in short, the thousand and one nothings +composing that agreeable whole, a cultivated member of society, are +inferior to their womankind. I feel sure that all Americans who have +travelled and have seen their compatriot in his social relations with +foreigners, will agree with this, reluctant as I am to acknowledge it. + +That a sister and brother brought up together, under the same influences, +should later differ to this extent seems incredible. It is just this +that convinces me we have made a false start as regards the education and +ambitions of our young men. + +To find the reasons one has only to glance back at our past. After the +struggle that insured our existence as a united nation, came a period of +great prosperity. When both seemed secure, we did not pause and take +breath, as it were, before entering a new epoch of development, but +dashed ahead on the old lines. It is here that we got on the wrong road. +Naturally enough too, for our peculiar position on this continent, far +away from the centres of cultivation and art, surrounded only by less +successful states with which to compare ourselves, has led us into +forming erroneous ideas as to the proportions of things, causing us to +exaggerate the value of material prosperity and undervalue matters of +infinitely greater importance, which have been neglected in consequence. + +A man who, after fighting through our late war, had succeeded in amassing +a fortune, naturally wished his son to follow him on the only road in +which it had ever occurred to him that success was of any importance. So +beyond giving the boy a college education, which he had not enjoyed, his +ambition rarely went; his idea being to make a practical business man of +him, or a lawyer, that he could keep the estate together more +intelligently. In thousands of cases, of course, individual taste and +bent over-ruled this influence, and a career of science or art was +chosen; but in the mass of the American people, it was firmly implanted +that the pursuit of wealth was the only occupation to which a reasonable +human being could devote himself. A young man who was not in some way +engaged in increasing his income was looked upon as a very undesirable +member of society, and sure, sooner or later, to come to harm. + +Millionaires declined to send their sons to college, saying they would +get ideas there that would unfit them for business, to Paterfamilias the +one object of life. Under such fostering influences, the ambitions in +our country have gradually given way to money standards and the false +start has been made! Leaving aside at once the question of money in its +relation to our politics (although it would be a fruitful subject for +moralizing), and confining ourselves strictly to the social side of life, +we soon see the results of this mammon worship. + +In England (although Englishmen have been contemptuously called the shop- +keepers of the world) the extension and maintenance of their vast empire +is the mainspring which keeps the great machine in movement. And one +sees tens of thousands of well-born and delicately-bred men cheerfully +entering the many branches of public service where the hope of wealth can +never come, and retiring on pensions or half-pay in the strength of their +middle age, apparently without a regret or a thought beyond their +country's well-being. + +In France, where the passionate love of their own land has made colonial +extension impossible, the modern Frenchman of education is more +interested in the yearly exhibition at the _Salon_ or in a successful +play at the _Francais_, than in the stock markets of the world. + +Would that our young men had either of these bents! They have copied +from England a certain love of sport, without the English climate or the +calm of country and garrison life, to make these sports logical and +necessary. As the young American millionaire thinks he must go on +increasing his fortune, we see the anomaly of a man working through a +summer's day in Wall Street, then dashing in a train to some suburban +club, and appearing a half-hour later on the polo field. Next to wealth, +sport has become the ambition of the wealthy classes, and has grown so +into our college life that the number of students in the freshman class +of our great universities is seriously influenced by that institution's +losses or gains at football. + +What is the result of all this? A young man starts in life with the firm +intention of making a great deal of money. If he has any time left from +that occupation he will devote it to sport. Later in life, when he has +leisure and travels, or is otherwise thrown with cultivated strangers, he +must naturally be at a disadvantage. "Shop," he cannot talk; he knows +that is vulgar. Music, art, the drama, and literature are closed books +to him, in spite of the fact that he may have a box on the grand tier at +the opera and a couple of dozen high-priced "masterpieces" hanging around +his drawing-rooms. If he is of a finer clay than the general run of his +class, he will realize dimly that somehow the goal has been missed in his +life race. His chase after the material has left him so little time to +cultivate the ideal, that he has prepared himself a sad and aimless old +age; unless he can find pleasure in doing as did a man I have been told +about, who, receiving half a dozen millions from his father's estate, +conceived the noble idea of increasing them so that he might leave to +each of his four children as much as he had himself received. With the +strictest economy, and by suppressing out of his life and that of his +children all amusements and superfluous outlay, he has succeeded now for +many years in living on the income of his income. Time will never hang +heavy on this Harpagon's hands. He is a perfectly happy individual, but +his conversation is hardly of a kind to attract, and it may be doubted if +the rest of the family are as much to be envied. + +An artist who had lived many years of his life in Paris and London was +speaking the other day of a curious phase he had remarked in our American +life. He had been accustomed over there to have his studio the meeting- +place of friends, who would drop in to smoke and lounge away an hour, +chatting as he worked. To his astonishment, he tells me that since he +has been in New York not one of the many men he knows has ever passed an +hour in his rooms. Is not that a significant fact? Another remark which +points its own moral was repeated to me recently. A foreigner visiting +here, to whom American friends were showing the sights of our city, +exclaimed at last: "You have not pointed out to me any celebrities except +millionaires. 'Do you see that man? he is worth ten millions. Look at +that house! it cost one million dollars, and there are pictures in it +worth over three million dollars. That trotter cost one hundred thousand +dollars,' etc." Was he not right? And does it not give my reader a +shudder to see in black and white the phrases that are, nevertheless, so +often on our lips? + +This levelling of everything to its cash value is so ingrained in us that +we are unconscious of it, as we are of using slang or local expressions +until our attention is called to them. I was present once at a farce +played in a London theatre, where the audience went into roars of +laughter every time the stage American said, "Why, certainly." I was +indignant, and began explaining to my English friend that we never used +such an absurd phrase. "Are you sure?" he asked. "Why, certainly," I +said, and stopped, catching the twinkle in his eye. + +It is very much the same thing with money. We do not notice how often it +slips into the conversation. "Out of the fullness of the heart the mouth +speaketh." Talk to an American of a painter and the charm of his work. +He will be sure to ask, "Do his pictures sell well?" and will lose all +interest if you say he can't sell them at all. As if that had anything +to do with it! + +Remembering the well-known anecdote of Schopenhauer and the gold piece +which he used to put beside his plate at the _table d'hote_, where he +ate, surrounded by the young officers of the German army, and which was +to be given to the poor the first time he heard any conversation that was +not about promotion or women, I have been tempted to try the experiment +in our clubs, changing the subjects to stocks and sport, and feel +confident that my contributions to charity would not ruin me. + +All this has had the result of making our men dull companions; after +dinner, or at a country house, if the subject they love is tabooed, they +talk of nothing! It is sad for a rich man (unless his mind has remained +entirely between the leaves of his ledger) to realize that money really +buys very little, and above a certain amount can give no satisfaction in +proportion to its bulk, beyond that delight which comes from a sense of +possession. Croesus often discovers as he grows old that he has +neglected to provide himself with the only thing that "is a joy for +ever"--a cultivated intellect--in order to amass a fortune that turns to +ashes, when he has time to ask of it any of the pleasures and resources +he fondly imagined it would afford him. Like Talleyrand's young man who +would not learn whist, he finds that he has prepared for himself a +dreadful old age! + + + + +No. 16--A Holy Land + + +Not long ago an article came under my notice descriptive of the +neighborhood around Grant's tomb and the calm that midsummer brings to +that vicinity, laughingly referred to as the "Holy Land." + +As careless fingers wandering over the strings of a violin may +unintentionally strike a chord, so the writer of those lines, all +unconsciously, with a jest, set vibrating a world of tender memories and +associations; for the region spoken of is truly a holy land to me, the +playground of my youth, and connected with the sweetest ties that can +bind one's thoughts to the past. + +Ernest Renan in his _Souvenirs d'Enfance_, tells of a Brittany legend, +firmly believed in that wild land, of the vanished city of "Is," which +ages ago disappeared beneath the waves. The peasants still point out at +a certain place on the coast the site of the fabled city, and the +fishermen tell how during great storms they have caught glimpses of its +belfries and ramparts far down between the waves; and assert that on calm +summer nights they can hear the bells chiming up from those depths. I +also have a vanished "Is" in my heart, and as I grow older, I love to +listen to the murmurs that float up from the past. They seem to come +from an infinite distance, almost like echoes from another life. + +At that enchanted time we lived during the summers in an old wooden house +my father had re-arranged into a fairly comfortable dwelling. A +tradition, which no one had ever taken the trouble to verify, averred +that Washington had once lived there, which made that hero very real to +us. The picturesque old house stood high on a slope where the land rises +boldly; with an admirable view of distant mountain, river and opposing +Palisades. + +The new Riverside drive (which, by the bye, should make us very lenient +toward the men who robbed our city a score of years ago, for they left us +that vast work in atonement), has so changed the neighborhood it is +impossible now for pious feet to make a pilgrimage to those childish +shrines. One house, however, still stands as when it was our nearest +neighbor. It had sheltered General Gage, land for many acres around had +belonged to him. He was an enthusiastic gardener, and imported, among a +hundred other fruits and plants, the "Queen Claude" plum from France, +which was successfully acclimated on his farm. In New York a plum of +that kind is still called a "green gage." The house has changed hands +many times since we used to play around the Grecian pillars of its +portico. A recent owner, dissatisfied doubtless with its classic +simplicity, has painted it a cheerful mustard color and crowned it with a +fine new _Mansard_ roof. Thus disfigured, and shorn of its surrounding +trees, the poor old house stands blankly by the roadside, reminding one +of the Greek statue in Anstey's "Painted Venus" after the London barber +had decorated her to his taste. When driving by there now, I close my +eyes. + +Another house, where we used to be taken to play, was that of Audubon, in +the park of that name. Many a rainy afternoon I have passed with his +children choosing our favorite birds in the glass cases that filled every +nook and corner of the tumble-down old place, or turning over the leaves +of the enormous volumes he would so graciously take down from their +places for our amusement. I often wonder what has become of those vast +_in-folios_, and if any one ever opens them now and admires as we did the +glowing colored plates in which the old ornithologist took such pride. +There is something infinitely sad in the idea of a collection of books +slowly gathered together at the price of privations and sacrifices, +cherished, fondled, lovingly read, and then at the owner's death, coldly +sent away to stand for ever unopened on the shelves of some public +library. It is like neglecting poor dumb children! + +An event that made a profound impression on my childish imagination +occurred while my father, who was never tired of improving our little +domain, was cutting a pathway down the steep side of the slope to the +river. A great slab, dislodged by a workman's pick, fell disclosing the +grave of an Indian chief. In a low archway or shallow cave sat the +skeleton of the chieftain, his bows and arrows arranged around him on the +ground, mingled with fragments of an elaborate costume, of which little +remained but the bead-work. That it was the tomb of a man great among +his people was evident from the care with which the grave had been +prepared and then hidden, proving how, hundreds of years before our +civilization, another race had chosen this noble cliff and stately river +landscape as the fitting framework for a great warrior's tomb. + +This discovery made no little stir in the scientific world of that day. +Hundreds came to see it, and as photography had not then come into the +world, many drawings were made and casts taken, and finally the whole +thing was removed to the rooms of the Historical Society. From that day +the lonely little path held an awful charm for us. Our childish readings +of Cooper had developed in us that love of the Indian and his wild life, +so characteristic of boyhood thirty years ago. On still summer +afternoons, the place had a primeval calm that froze the young blood in +our veins. Although we prided ourselves on our quality as "braves," and +secretly pined to be led on the war-path, we were shy of walking in that +vicinity in daylight, and no power on earth, not even the offer of the +tomahawk or snow-shoes for which our souls longed, would have taken us +there at night. + +A place connected in my memory with a tragic association was across the +river on the last southern slope of the Palisades. Here we stood +breathless while my father told the brief story of the duel between Burr +and Hamilton, and showed us the rock stained by the younger man's life- +blood. In those days there was a simple iron railing around the spot +where Hamilton had expired, but of later years I have been unable to find +any trace of the place. The tide of immigration has brought so deep a +deposit of "saloons" and suburban "balls" that the very face of the land +is changed, old lovers of that shore know it no more. Never were the +environs of a city so wantonly and recklessly degraded. Municipalities +have vied with millionaires in soiling and debasing the exquisite shores +of our river, that, thirty years ago, were unrivalled the world over. + +The glamour of the past still lies for me upon this landscape in spite of +its many defacements. The river whispers of boyish boating parties, and +the woods recall a thousand childish hopes and fears, resolute departures +to join the pirates, or the red men in their strongholds--journeys boldly +carried out until twilight cooled our courage and the supper-hour proved +a stronger temptation than war and carnage. + +When I sat down this summer evening to write a few lines about happy days +on the banks of the Hudson, I hardly realized how sweet those memories +were to me. The rewriting of the old names has evoked from their long +sleep so many loved faces. Arms seem reaching out to me from the past. +The house is very still to-night. I seem to be nearer my loved dead than +to the living. The bells of my lost "Is" are ringing clear in the +silence. + + + + +No. 17--Royalty At Play + + +Few more amusing sights are to be seen in these days, than that of +crowned heads running away from their dull old courts and functions, +roughing it in hotels and villas, gambling, yachting and playing at being +rich nobodies. With much intelligence they have all chosen the same +Republican playground, where visits cannot possibly be twisted into +meaning any new "combination" or political move, thus assuring themselves +the freedom from care or responsibility, that seems to be the aim of +their existence. Alongside of well-to-do Royalties in good paying +situations, are those out of a job, who are looking about for a "place." +One cannot take an afternoon's ramble anywhere between Cannes and Mentone +without meeting a half-dozen of these magnates. + +The other day, in one short walk, I ran across three Empresses, two +Queens, and an Heir-apparent, and then fled to my hotel, fearing to be +unfitted for America, if I went on "keeping such company." They are +knowing enough, these wandering great ones, and after trying many places +have hit on this charming coast as offering more than any other for their +comfort and enjoyment. The vogue of these sunny shores dates from their +annexation to France,--a price Victor Emmanuel reluctantly paid for +French help in his war with Austria. Napoleon III.'s demand for Savoy +and this littoral, was first made known to Victor Emmanuel at a state +ball at Genoa. Savoy was his birthplace and his home! The King broke +into a wild temper, cursing the French Emperor and making insulting +allusions to his parentage, saying he had not one drop of Bonaparte blood +in his veins. The King's frightened courtiers tried to stop this +outburst, showing him the French Ambassador at his elbow. With a +superhuman effort Victor Emmanuel controlled himself, and turning to the +Ambassador, said: + +"I fear my tongue ran away with me!" With a smile and a bow the great +French diplomatist remarked: + +"_Sire_, I am so deaf I have not heard a word your Majesty has been +saying!" + +The fashion of coming to the Riviera for health or for amusement, dates +from the sixties, when the Empress of Russia passed a winter at Nice, as +a last attempt to prolong the existence of the dying Tsarewitsch, her +son. There also the next season the Duke of Edinburgh wooed and won her +daughter (then the greatest heiress in Europe) for his bride. The world +moves fast and a journey it required a matter of life and death to decide +on, then, is gayly undertaken now, that a prince may race a yacht, or a +princess try her luck at the gambling tables. When one reflects that the +"royal caste," in Europe alone, numbers some eight hundred people, and +that the East is beginning to send out its more enterprising crowned +heads to get a taste of the fun, that beyond drawing their salaries, +these good people have absolutely nothing to do, except to amuse +themselves, it is no wonder that this happy land is crowded with royal +pleasure-seekers. + +After a try at Florence and Aix, "the Queen" has been faithful to Cimiez, +a charming site back of Nice. That gay city is always _en fete_ the day +she arrives, as her carriages pass surrounded by French cavalry, one can +catch a glimpse of her big face, and dowdy little figure, which +nevertheless she can make so dignified when occasion requires. The stay +here is, indeed, a holiday for this record-breaking sovereign, who +potters about her private grounds of a morning in a donkey-chair, sunning +herself and watching her Battenberg grandchildren at play. In the +afternoon, she drives a couple of hours--in an open carriage--one +outrider in black livery alone distinguishing her turnout from the +others. + +The Prince of Wales makes his headquarters at Cannes where he has poor +luck in sailing the Brittania, for which he consoles himself with jolly +dinners at Monte Carlo. You can see him almost any evening in the +_Restaurant de Paris_, surrounded by his own particular set,--the Duchess +of Devonshire (who started a penniless German officer's daughter, and +became twice a duchess); Lady de Grey and Lady Wolverton, both showing +near six feet of slender English beauty; at their side, and lovelier than +either, the Countess of Essex. The husbands of these "Merry Wives" are +absent, but do not seem to be missed, as the ladies sit smoking and +laughing over their coffee, the party only breaking up towards eleven +o'clock to try its luck at _trente et quarante_, until a "special" takes +them back to Cannes. + +He is getting sadly old and fat, is England's heir, the likeness to his +mamma becoming more marked each year. His voice, too, is oddly like +hers, deep and guttural, more adapted to the paternal German (which all +this family speak when alone) than to his native English. Hair, he has +none, except a little fringe across the back of his head, just above a +fine large roll of fat that blushes above his shirt-collar. Too bad that +this discovery of the microbe of baldness comes rather late for him! He +has a pleasant twinkle in his small eyes, and an entire absence of +_pose_, that accounts largely for his immense and enduring popularity. + +But the Hotel Cap Martin shelters quieter crowned heads. The Emperor and +Empress of Austria, who tramp about the hilly roads, the King and Queen +of Saxony and the fat Arch-duchess Stephanie. Austria's Empress looks +sadly changed and ill, as does another lady of whom one can occasionally +catch a glimpse, walking painfully with a crutch-stick in the shadow of +the trees near her villa. It is hard to believe that this white-haired, +bent old woman was once the imperial beauty who from the salons of the +Tuileries dictated the fashions of the world! Few have paid so dearly +for their brief hour of splendor! + +Cannes with its excellent harbor is the centre of interest during the +racing season when the Tsarewitsch comes on his yacht Czaritza. At the +Battle of Flowers, one is pretty sure to see the Duke of Cambridge, his +Imperial Highness, the Grand Duke Michael, Prince Christian of Denmark, +H.R.H. the Duke of Nassau, H.I.H. the Archduke Ferdinand d'Este, their +Serene Highnesses of Mecklenburg-Schwerin and the Saxe-Coburg-Gothas, +also H.I.H. Marie Valerie and the Schleswig-Holsteins, pelting each other +and the public with _confetti_ and flowers. Indeed, half the _Almanach +de Gotha_, that continental "society list," seems to be sunning itself +here and forgetting its cares, on bicycles or on board yachts. It is +said that the Crown Princess of Honolulu (whoever she may be) honors +Mentone with her presence, and the newly deposed Queen "Ranavalo" of +Madagascar is _en route_ to join in the fun. + +This crowd of royalty reminds me of a story the old sea-dogs who gather +about the "Admirals' corner" of the Metropolitan Club in Washington, love +to tell you. An American cockswain, dazzled by a doubly royal visit, +with attending suites, on board the old "Constitution," came up to his +commanding officer and touching his cap, said: + +"Beg pardon, Admiral, but one of them kings has tumbled down the gangway +and broke his leg." + +It has become a much more amusing thing to wear a crown than it was. +Times have changed indeed since Marie Laczinska lived the fifty lonely +years of her wedded life and bore her many children, in one bed-room at +Versailles--a monotony only broken by visits to Fontainebleau or Marly. +Shakespeare's line no longer fits the case. + +Beyond securing rich matches for their children, and keeping a sharp +lookout that the Radicals at home do not unduly cut down their civil +lists, these great ones have little but their amusements to occupy them. +Do they ever reflect, as they rush about visiting each other and +squabbling over precedence when they meet, that some fine morning the tax- +payers may wake up, and ask each other why they are being crushed under +such heavy loads, that eight hundred or more quite useless people may +pass their lives in foreign watering-places, away from their homes and +their duties? It will be a bad day for them when the long-suffering +subjects say to them, "Since we get on so exceedingly well during your +many visits abroad, we think we will try how it will work without you at +all!" + +The Prince of little Monaco seems to be about the only one up to the +situation, for he at least stays at home, and in connection with two +other gentlemen runs an exceedingly good hotel and several restaurants on +his estates, doing all he can to attract money into the place, while +making the strictest laws to prevent his subjects gambling at the famous +tables. Now if other royalties instead of amusing themselves all the +year round would go in for something practical like this, they might +become useful members of the community. This idea of Monaco's Prince +strikes one as most timely, and as opening a career for other indigent +crowned heads. Hotels are getting so good and so numerous, that without +some especial "attraction" a new one can hardly succeed; but a +"Hohenzollern House" well situated in Berlin, with William II. to receive +the tourists at the door, and his fat wife at the desk, would be sure to +prosper. It certainly would be pleasanter for him to spend money so +honestly earned than the millions wrested from half-starving peasants +which form his present income. Besides there is almost as much gold lace +on a hotel employee's livery as on a court costume! + +The numerous crowned heads one meets wandering about, can hardly lull +themselves over their "games" with the flattering unction that they are +of use, for, have they not France before them (which they find so much to +their taste) stronger, richer, more respected than ever since she shook +herself free of such incumbrances? Not to mention our own democratic +country, which has managed to hold its own, in spite of their many +gleeful predictions to the contrary. + + + + +No. 18--A Rock Ahead + + +Having had occasion several times during this past season, to pass by the +larger stores in the vicinity of Twenty-third Street, I have been struck +more than ever, by the endless flow of womankind that beats against the +doors of those establishments. If they were temples where a beneficent +deity was distributing health, learning, and all the good things of +existence, the rush could hardly have been greater. It saddened me to +realize that each of the eager women I saw was, on the contrary, +dispensing something of her strength and brain, as well as the wearily +earned stipend of the men of her family (if not her own), for what could +be of little profit to her. + +It occurred to me that, if the people who are so quick to talk about the +elevating and refining influences of women, could take an hour or two and +inspect the centres in question, they might not be so firm in their +beliefs. For, reluctant as I am to acknowledge it, the one great +misfortune in this country, is the unnatural position which has been +(from some mistaken idea of chivalry) accorded to women here. The result +of placing them on this pedestal, and treating them as things apart, has +been to make women in America poorer helpmeets to their husbands than in +any other country on the face of the globe, civilized or uncivilized. + +Strange as it may appear, this is not confined to the rich, but permeates +all classes, becoming more harmful in descending the social scale, and it +will bring about a disintegration of our society, sooner than could be +believed. The saying on which we have all been brought up, viz., that +you can gauge the point of civilization attained in a nation by the +position it accords to woman, was quite true as long as woman was +considered man's inferior. To make her his equal was perfectly just; all +the trouble begins when you attempt to make her man's superior, a +something apart from his working life, and not the companion of his +troubles and cares, as she was intended to be. + +When a small shopkeeper in Europe marries, the next day you will see his +young wife taking her place at the desk in his shop. While he serves his +customers, his smiling spouse keeps the books, makes change, and has an +eye on the employees. At noon they dine together; in the evening, after +the shop is closed, are pleased or saddened together over the results of +the day. The wife's _dot_ almost always goes into the business, so that +there is a community of interest to unite them, and their lives are +passed together. In this country, what happens? The husband places his +new wife in a small house, or in two or three furnished rooms, generally +so far away that all idea of dining with her is impossible. In +consequence, he has a "quick lunch" down town, and does not see his wife +between eight o'clock in the morning and seven in the evening. His +business is a closed book to her, in which she can have no interest, for +her weary husband naturally revolts from talking "shop," even if she is +in a position to understand him. + +His false sense of shielding her from the rude world makes him keep his +troubles to himself, so she rarely knows his financial position and sulks +over his "meanness" to her, in regard to pin-money; and being a perfectly +idle person, her days are apt to be passed in a way especially devised by +Satan for unoccupied hands. She has learned no cooking from her mother; +"going to market" has become a thing of the past. So she falls a victim +to the allurements of the bargain-counter; returning home after hours of +aimless wandering, irritable and aggrieved because she cannot own the +beautiful things she has seen. She passes the evening in trying to win +her husband's consent to some purchase he knows he cannot afford, while +it breaks his heart to refuse her--some object, which, were she really +his companion, she would not have had the time to see or the folly to ask +for. + +The janitor in our building is truly a toiler. He rarely leaves his +dismal quarters under the sidewalk, but "Madam" walks the streets clad in +sealskin and silk, a "Gainsborough" crowning her false "bang." I always +think of Max O'Rell's clever saying, when I see her: "The sweat of the +American husband crystallizes into diamond ear-rings for the American +woman." My janitress sports a diminutive pair of those jewels and has +hopes of larger ones! Instead of "doing" the bachelor's rooms in the +building as her husband's helpmeet, she "does" her spouse, and a char- +woman works for her. She is one of the drops in the tide that ebbs and +flows on Twenty-third Street--a discontented woman placed in a false +position by our absurd customs. + +Go a little further up in the social scale and you will find the same +"detached" feeling. In a household I know of only one horse and a +_coupe_ can be afforded. Do you suppose it is for the use of the weary +breadwinner? Not at all. He walks from his home to the "elevated." The +carriage is to take his wife to teas or the park. In a year or two she +will go abroad, leaving him alone to turn the crank that produces the +income. As it is, she always leaves him for six months each year in a +half-closed house, to the tender mercies of a caretaker. Two additional +words could be advantageously added to the wedding service. After "for +richer for poorer," I should like to hear a bride promise to cling to her +husband "for winter for summer!" + +Make another step up and stand in the entrance of a house at two A.M., +just as the cotillion is commencing, and watch the couples leaving. The +husband, who has been in Wall Street all day, knows that he must be there +again at nine next morning. He is furious at the lateness of the hour, +and dropping with fatigue. His wife, who has done nothing to weary her, +is equally enraged to be taken away just as the ball was becoming +amusing. What a happy, united pair they are as the footman closes the +door and the carriage rolls off home! Who is to blame? The husband is +vainly trying to lead the most exacting of double lives, that of a +business man all day and a society man all night. You can pick him out +at a glance in a ballroom. His eye shows you that there is no rest for +him, for he has placed his wife at the head of an establishment whose +working crushes him into the mud of care and anxiety. Has he any one to +blame but himself? + +In England, I am told, the man of a family goes up to London in the +spring and gets his complete outfit, down to the smallest details of hat- +box and umbrella. If there happens to be money left, the wife gets a new +gown or two: if not, she "turns" the old ones and rejoices vicariously in +the splendor of her "lord." I know one charming little home over there, +where the ladies cannot afford a pony-carriage, because the three +indispensable hunters eat up the where-withal. + +Thackeray was delighted to find one household (Major Ponto's) where the +governess ruled supreme, and I feel a fiendish pleasure in these accounts +of a country where men have been able to maintain some rights, and am +moved to preach a crusade for the liberation of the American husband, +that the poor, down-trodden creature may revolt from the slavery where he +is held and once more claim his birthright. If he be prompt to act (and +is successful) he may work such a reform that our girls, on marrying, may +feel that some duties and responsibilities go with their new positions; +and a state of things be changed, where it is possible for a woman to be +pitied by her friends as a model of abnegation, because she has decided +to remain in town during the summer to keep her husband company and make +his weary home-coming brighter. Or where (as in a story recently heard) +a foreigner on being presented to an American bride abroad and asking for +her husband, could hear in answer: "Oh, he could not come; he was too +busy. I am making my wedding-trip without him." + + + + +No. 19--The Grand Prix + + +In most cities, it is impossible to say when the "season" ends. In +London and with us in New York it dwindles off without any special +finish, but in Paris it closes like a trap-door, or the curtain on the +last scene of a pantomime, while the lights are blazing and the orchestra +is banging its loudest. The _Grand Prix_, which takes place on the +second Sunday in June, is the climax of the spring gayeties. Up to that +date, the social pace has been getting faster and faster, like the finish +of the big race itself, and fortunately for the lives of the women as +well as the horses, ends as suddenly. + +In 1897, the last steeple chase at Auteuil, which precedes the _Grand +Prix_ by one week, was won by a horse belonging to an actress of the +_Theatre Francais_, a lady who has been a great deal before the public +already in connection with the life and death of young Lebaudy. This +youth having had the misfortune to inherit an enormous fortune, while +still a mere boy, plunged into the wildest dissipation, and became the +prey of a band of sharpers and blacklegs. Mlle. Marie Louise Marsy +appears to have been the one person who had a sincere affection for the +unfortunate youth. When his health gave way during his military service, +she threw over her engagement with the _Francais_, and nursed her lover +until his death--a devotion rewarded by the gift of a million. + +At the present moment, four or five of the band of self-styled noblemen +who traded on the boy's inexperience and generosity, are serving out +terms in the state prisons for blackmailing, and the _Theatre Francais_ +possesses the anomaly of a young and beautiful actress, who runs a racing +stable in her own name. + +The _Grand Prix_ dates from the reign of Napoleon III., who, at the +suggestion of the great railway companies, inaugurated this race in 1862, +in imitation of the English Derby, as a means of attracting people to +Paris. The city and the railways each give half of the forty-thousand- +dollar prize. It is the great official race of the year. The President +occupies the central pavilion, surrounded by the members of the cabinet +and the diplomatic corps. On the tribunes and lawn can be seen the _Tout +Paris_--all the celebrities of the great and half-world who play such an +important part in the life of France's capital. The whole colony of the +_Rastaquoueres_, is sure to be there, "_Rastas_," as they are familiarly +called by the Parisians, who make little if any distinction in their +minds between a South American (blazing in diamonds and vulgar clothes) +and our own select (?) colony. Apropos of this inability of the +Europeans to appreciate our fine social distinctions, I have been told of +a well-born New Yorker who took a French noblewoman rather to task for +receiving an American she thought unworthy of notice, and said: + +"How can you receive her? Her husband keeps a hotel!" + +"Is that any reason?" asked the French-woman; "I thought all Americans +kept hotels." + +For the _Grand Prix_, every woman not absolutely bankrupt has a new +costume, her one idea being a _creation_ that will attract attention and +eclipse her rivals. The dressmakers have had a busy time of it for weeks +before. + +Every horse that can stand up is pressed into service for the day. For +twenty-four hours before, the whole city is _en fete_, and Paris _en +fete_ is always a sight worth seeing. The natural gayety of the +Parisians, a characteristic noticed (if we are to believe the historians) +as far back as the conquest of Gaul by Julius Caesar, breaks out in all +its amusing spontaneity. If the day is fine, the entire population gives +itself up to amusement. From early morning the current sets towards the +charming corner of the Bois where the Longchamps race-course lies, +picturesquely encircled by the Seine (alive with a thousand boats), and +backed by the woody slopes of Suresnes and St. Cloud. By noon every +corner and vantage point of the landscape is seized upon, when, with a +blare of trumpets and the rattle of cavalry, the President arrives in his +turnout _a la Daumont_, two postilions in blue and gold, and a _piqueur_, +preceded by a detachment of the showy _Gardes Republicains_ on horseback, +and takes his place in the little pavilion where for so many years +Eugenie used to sit in state, and which has sheltered so many crowned +heads under its simple roof. Faure's arrival is the signal for the +racing to begin, from that moment the interest goes on increasing until +the great "event." Then in an instant the vast throng of human beings +breaks up and flows homeward across the Bois, filling the big Place +around the Arc de Triomphe, rolling down the Champs Elysees, in twenty +parallel lines of carriages. The sidewalks are filled with a laughing, +singing, uproarious crowd that quickly invades every restaurant, _cafe_, +or chop-house until their little tables overflow on to the grass and side- +walks, and even into the middle of the streets. Later in the evening the +open-air concerts and theatres are packed, and every little square +organizes its impromptu ball, the musicians mounted on tables, and the +crowd dancing gayly on the wooden pavement until daybreak. + +The next day, Paris becomes from a fashionable point of view, +"impossible." If you walk through the richer quarters, you will see only +long lines of closed windows. The approaches to the railway stations are +blocked with cabs piled with trunks and bicycles. The "great world" is +fleeing to the seashore or its _chateaux_, and Paris will know it no more +until January, for the French are a country-loving race, and since there +has been no court, the aristocracy pass longer and longer periods on +their own estates each year, partly from choice and largely to show their +disdain for the republic and its entertainments. + +The shady drives in the park, which only a day or two ago were so +brilliant with smart traps and spring toilets, are become a cool +wilderness, where will meet, perhaps, a few maiden ladies exercising fat +dogs, uninterrupted except by the watering-cart or by a few stray +tourists in cabs. Now comes a delightful time for the real amateur of +Paris and the country around, which is full of charming corners where one +can dine at quiet little restaurants, overhanging the water or buried +among trees. You are sure of getting the best of attention from the +waiters, and the dishes you order receive all the cook's attention. Of +an evening the Bois is alive with a myriad of bicycles, their lights +twinkling among the trees like many-colored fire-flies. To any one who +knows how to live there, Paris is at its best in the last half of June +and July. Nevertheless, in a couple of days there will not be an +American in Paris, London being the objective point; for we love to be +"in at the death," and a coronation, a musical festival, or a big race is +sure to attract all our floating population. + +The Americans who have the hardest time in Paris are those who try to +"run with the deer and hunt with the hounds," as the French proverb has +it, who would fain serve God and Mammon. As anything especially amusing +is sure to take place on Sunday in this wicked capital, our friends go +through agonies of indecision, their consciences pulling one way, their +desire to amuse themselves the other. Some find a middle course, it +seems, for yesterday this conversation was overheard on the steps of the +American Church: + +_First American Lady_: "Are you going to stop for the sermon?" + +_Second American Lady_: "I am so sorry I can't, but the races begin at +one!" + + + + +No. 20--"The Treadmill." + + +A half-humorous, half-pathetic epistle has been sent to me by a woman, +who explains in it her particular perplexity. Such letters are the +windfalls of our profession! For what is more attractive than to have a +woman take you for her lay confessor, to whom she comes for advice in +trouble? opening her innocent heart for your inspection! + +My correspondent complains that her days are not sufficiently long, nor +is her strength great enough, for the thousand and one duties and +obligations imposed upon her. "If," she says, "a woman has friends and a +small place in the world--and who has not in these days?--she must golf +or 'bike' or skate a bit, of a morning; then she is apt to lunch out, or +have a friend or two in, to that meal. After luncheon there is sure to +be a 'class' of some kind that she has foolishly joined, or a charity +meeting, matinee, or reception; but above all, there are her 'duty' +calls. She must be home at five to make tea, that she has promised her +men friends, and they will not leave until it is time for her to dress +for dinner, 'out' or at home, with often the opera, a supper, or a ball +to follow. It is quite impossible," she adds, "under these circumstances +to apply one's self to anything serious, to read a book or even open a +periodical. The most one can accomplish is a glance at a paper." + +Indeed, it would require an exceptional constitution to carry out the +above programme, not to mention the attention that a woman must (however +reluctantly) give to her house and her family. Where are the quiet hours +to be found for self-culture, the perusal of a favorite author, or, +perhaps, a little timid "writing" on her own account? Nor does this +treadmill round fill a few months only of her life. With slight +variations of scene and costume, it continues through the year. + +A painter, I know, was fortunate enough to receive, a year or two ago, +the commission to paint a well-known beauty. He was delighted with the +idea and convinced that he could make her portrait the best work of his +life, one that would be the stepping-stone to fame and fortune. This was +in the spring. He was naturally burning to begin at once, but found to +his dismay that the lady was just about starting for Europe. So he +waited, and at her suggestion installed himself a couple of months later +at the seaside city where she had a cottage. No one could be more +charming than she was, inviting him to dine and drive daily, but when he +broached the subject of "sitting," was "too busy just that day." Later +in the autumn she would be quite at his disposal. In the autumn, +however, she was visiting, never ten days in the same place. Early +winter found her "getting her house in order," a mysterious rite +apparently attended with vast worry and fatigue. With cooling +enthusiasm, the painter called and coaxed and waited. November brought +the opera and the full swing of a New York season. So far she has given +him half a dozen sittings, squeezed in between a luncheon, which made her +"unavoidably late," for which she is charmingly "sorry," and a reception +that she was forced to attend, although "it breaks my heart to leave just +as you are beginning to work so well, but I really must, or the tiresome +old cat who is giving the tea will be saying all sorts of unpleasant +things about me." So she flits off, leaving the poor, disillusioned +painter before his canvas, knowing now that his dream is over, that in a +month or two his pretty sitter will be off again to New Orleans for the +carnival, or abroad, and that his weary round of waiting will recommence. +He will be fortunate if some day it does not float back to him, in the +mysterious way disagreeable things do come to one, that she has been +heard to say, "I fear dear Mr. Palette is not very clever, for I have +been sitting to him for over a year, and he has really done nothing yet." + +He has been simply the victim of a state of affairs that neither of them +were strong enough to break through. It never entered into Beauty's head +that she could lead a life different from her friends. She was honestly +anxious to have a successful portrait of herself, but the sacrifice of +any of her habits was more than she could make. + +Who among my readers (and I am tempted to believe they are all more +sensible than the above young woman) has not, during a summer passed with +agreeable friends, made a thousand pleasant little plans with them for +the ensuing winter,--the books they were to read at the same time, the +"exhibitions" they were to see, the visits to our wonderful collections +in the Metropolitan Museum or private galleries, cosy little dinners, +etc.? And who has not found, as the winter slips away, that few of these +charming plans have been carried out? He and his friends have +unconsciously fallen back into their ruts of former years, and the +pleasant things projected have been brushed aside by that strongest of +tyrants, habit. + +I once asked a very great lady, whose gracious manner was never +disturbed, who floated through the endless complications of her life with +smiling serenity, how she achieved this Olympian calm. She was good +enough to explain. "I make a list of what I want to do each day. Then, +as I find my day passing, or I get behind, or tired, I throw over every +other engagement. I could have done them all with hurry and fatigue. I +prefer to do one-half and enjoy what I do. If I go to a house, it is to +remain and appreciate whatever entertainment has been prepared for me. I +never offer to any hostess the slight of a hurried, _distrait_ 'call,' +with glances at my watch, and an 'on-the-wing' manner. It is much easier +not to go, or to send a card." + +This brings me around to a subject which I believe is one of the causes +of my correspondent's dilemma. I fear that she never can refuse +anything. It is a peculiar trait of people who go about to amuse +themselves, that they are always sure the particular entertainment they +have been asked to last is going to "be amusing." It rarely is different +from the others, but these people are convinced, that to stay away would +be to miss something. A weary-looking girl about 1 A.M. (at a +house-party) when asked why she did not go to bed if she was so tired, +answered, "the nights I go to bed early, they always seem to do something +jolly, and then I miss it." + +There is no greater proof of how much this weary round wears on women +than the acts of the few who feel themselves strong enough in their +position to defy custom. They have thrown off the yoke (at least the +younger ones have) doubtless backed up by their husbands, for men are +much quicker to see the aimlessness of this stupid social routine. First +they broke down the great New-Year-call "grind." Men over forty +doubtless recall with a shudder, that awful custom which compelled a man +to get into his dress clothes at ten A.M., and pass his day rushing about +from house to house like a postman. Out-of-town clubs and sport helped +to do away with that remnant of New Amsterdam. Next came the male revolt +from the afternoon "tea" or "musical." A black coat is rare now at +either of these functions, or if seen is pretty sure to be on a back over +fifty. Next, we lords of creation refused to call at all, or leave our +cards. A married woman now leaves her husband's card with her own, and +sisters leave the "pasteboard" of their brothers and often those of their +brothers' friends. Any combination is good enough to "shoot a card." + +In London the men have gone a step further. It is not uncommon to hear a +young man boast that he never owned a visiting card or made a "duty" call +in his life. Neither there nor with us does a man count as a "call" a +quiet cup of tea with a woman he likes, and a cigarette and quiet talk +until dressing time. Let the young women have courage and take matters +into their own hands. (The older ones are hopeless and will go on +pushing this Juggernaut car over each other's weary bodies, until the end +of the chapter.) Let them have the courage occasionally to "refuse" +something, to keep themselves free from aimless engagements, and bring +this paste-board war to a close. If a woman is attractive, she will be +asked out all the same, never fear! If she is not popular, the few dozen +of "egg-shell extra" that she can manage to slip in at the front doors of +her acquaintances will not help her much. + +If this matter is, however, so vastly important in women's eyes, why not +adopt the continental and diplomatic custom and send cards by post or +otherwise? There, if a new-comer dines out and meets twenty-five people +for the first time, cards must be left the next day at their twenty-five +respective residences. How the cards get there is of no importance. It +is a diplomatic fiction that the new acquaintance has called in person, +and the call will be returned within twenty-four hours. Think of the +saving of time and strength! In Paris, on New Year's Day, people send +cards by post to everybody they wish to keep up. That does for a year, +and no more is thought about it. All the time thus gained can be given +to culture or recreation. + +I have often wondered why one sees so few women one knows at our picture +exhibitions or flower shows. It is no longer a mystery to me. They are +all busy trotting up and down our long side streets leaving cards. +Hideous vision! Should Dante by any chance reincarnate, he would find +here the material ready made to his hand for an eighth circle in his +_Inferno_. + + + + +No. 21--"Like Master Like Man." + + +A frequent and naive complaint one hears, is of the unsatisfactoriness of +servants generally, and their ingratitude and astonishing lack of +affection for their masters, in particular. "After all I have done for +them," is pretty sure to sum up the long tale of a housewife's griefs. Of +all the delightful inconsistencies that grace the female mind, this +latter point of view always strikes me as being the most complete. I +artfully lead my fair friend on to tell me all about her woes, and she is +sure to be exquisitely one-sided and quite unconscious of her position. +"They are so extravagant, take so little interest in my things, and leave +me at a moment's notice, if they get an idea I am going to break up. +Horrid things! I wish I could do without them! They cause me endless +worry and annoyance." My friend is very nearly right,--but with whom +lies the fault? + +The conditions were bad enough years ago, when servants were kept for +decades in the same family, descending like heirlooms from father to son, +often (abroad) being the foster sisters or brothers of their masters, and +bound to the household by an hundred ties of sympathy and tradition. But +in our day, and in America, where there is rarely even a common language +or nationality to form a bond, and where households are broken up with +such facility, the relation between master and servant is often so +strained and so unpleasant that we risk becoming (what foreigners +reproach us with being), a nation of hotel-dwellers. Nor is this class- +feeling greatly to be wondered at. The contrary would be astonishing. +From the primitive household, where a poor neighbor comes in as "help," +to the "great" establishment where the butler and housekeeper eat apart, +and a group of plush-clad flunkies imported from England adorn the +entrance-hall, nothing could be better contrived to set one class against +another than domestic service. + +Proverbs have grown out of it in every language. "No man is a hero to +his valet," and "familiarity breeds contempt," are clear enough. Our +comic papers are full of the misunderstandings and absurdities of the +situation, while one rarely sees a joke made about the other ways that +the poor earn their living. Think of it for a moment! To be obliged to +attend people at the times of day when they are least attractive, when +from fatigue or temper they drop the mask that society glues to their +faces so many hours in the twenty-four; to see always the seamy side of +life, the small expedients, the aids to nature; to stand behind a chair +and hear an acquaintance of your master's ridiculed, who has just been +warmly praised to his face; to see a hostess who has been graciously +urging her guests "not to go so soon," blurt out all her boredom and +thankfulness "that those tiresome So-and-So's" are "paid off at last," as +soon as the door is closed behind them, must needs give a curious bent to +a servant's mind. They see their employers insincere, and copy them. +Many a mistress who has been smilingly assured by her maid how much her +dress becomes her, and how young she is looking, would be thunderstruck +to hear herself laughed at and criticised (none too delicately) five +minutes later in that servant's talk. + +Servants are trained from their youth up to conceal their true feelings. +A domestic who said what she thought would quickly lose her place. +Frankly, is it not asking a good deal to expect a maid to be very fond of +a lady who makes her sit up night after night until the small hours to +unlace her bodice or take down her hair; or imagine a valet can be +devoted to a master he has to get into bed as best he can because he is +too tipsy to get there unaided? Immortal "Figaro" is the type! Supple, +liar, corrupt, intelligent,--he aids his master and laughs at him, +feathering his own nest the while. There is a saying that "horses +corrupt whoever lives with them." It would be more correct to say that +domestic service demoralizes alike both master and man. + +Already we are obliged to depend on immigration for our servants because +an American revolts from the false position, though he willingly accepts +longer hours or harder work where he has no one around him but his +equals. It is the old story of the free, hungry wolf, and the well-fed, +but chained, house-dog. The foreigners that immigration now brings us, +from countries where great class distinctions exist, find it natural to +"serve." With the increase in education and consequent self-respect, the +difficulty of getting efficient and contented servants will increase with +us. It has already become a great social problem in England. The +trouble lies beneath the surface. If a superior class accept service at +all, it is with the intention of quickly getting money enough to do +something better. With them service is merely the means to an end. A +first step on the ladder! + +Bad masters are the cause of so much suffering, that to protect +themselves, the great brother-hood of servants have imagined a system of +keeping run of "places," and giving them a "character" which an aspirant +can find out with little trouble. This organization is so complete, and +so well carried out, that a household where the lady has a "temper," +where the food is poor, or which breaks up often, can rarely get a first- +class domestic. The "place" has been boycotted, a good servant will +sooner remain idle than enter it. If circumstances are too much for him +and he accepts the situation, it is with his eyes open, knowing +infinitely more about his new employers and their failings than they +dream of, or than they could possibly find out about him. + +One thing never can be sufficiently impressed on people, viz.: that we +are forced to live with detectives, always behind us in caps or dress- +suits, ready to note every careless word, every incautious criticism of +friend or acquaintance--their money matters or their love affairs--and +who have nothing more interesting to do than to repeat what they have +heard, with embroideries and additions of their own. Considering this, +and that nine people out of ten talk quite oblivious of their servants' +presence, it is to be wondered at that so little (and not that so much) +trouble is made. + +It always amuses me when I ask a friend if she is going abroad in the +spring, to have her say "Hush!" with a frightened glance towards the +door. + +"I am; but I do not want the servants to know, or the horrid things would +leave me!" + +Poor, simple lady! They knew it before you did, and had discussed the +whole matter over their "tea" while it was an almost unuttered thought in +your mind. If they have not already given you notice, it is because, on +the whole your house suits them well enough for the present, while they +look about. Do not worry your simple soul, trying to keep anything from +them. They know the amount of your last dressmaker's bill, and the row +your husband made over it. They know how much you would have liked young +"Croesus" for your daughter, and the little tricks you played to bring +that marriage about. They know why you are no longer asked to dine at +Mrs. Swell's, which is more than you know yourself. Mrs. Swell explained +the matter to a few friends over her lunch-table recently, and the butler +told your maid that same evening, who was laughing at the story as she +put on your slippers! + +Before we blame them too much, however, let us remember that they have it +in their power to make great trouble if they choose. And considering the +little that is made in this way, we must conclude that, on the whole, +they are better than we give them credit for being, and fill a trying +situation with much good humor and kindliness. The lady who is +astonished that they take so little interest in her, will perhaps feel +differently if she reflects how little trouble she has given herself to +find out their anxieties and griefs, their temptations and +heart-burnings; their material situation; whom they support with their +slowly earned wages, what claims they have on them from outside. If she +will also reflect on the number of days in a year when she is "not +herself," when headaches or disappointments ruffle her charming temper, +she may come to the conclusion that it is too much to expect all the +virtues for twenty dollars a month. + +A little more human interest, my good friends, a little more indulgence, +and you will not risk finding yourself in the position of the lady who +wrote me that last summer she had been obliged to keep open house for +"'Cook' tourists!" + + + + +No. 22--An English Invasion of the Riviera + + +When sixty years ago Lord Brougham, _en route_ for Italy, was thrown from +his travelling berline and his leg was broken, near the Italian hamlet of +Cannes, the Riviera was as unknown to the polite world as the centre of +China. The _grand tour_ which every young aristocrat made with his +tutor, on coming of age, only included crossing from France into Italy by +the Alps. It was the occurrence of an unusually severe winter in +Switzerland that turned Brougham aside into the longer and less travelled +route _via_ the Corniche, the marvellous Roman road at that time fallen +into oblivion, and little used even by the local peasantry. + +During the tedious weeks while his leg was mending, Lord Brougham amused +himself by exploring the surrounding country in his carriage, and was +quick to realize the advantages of the climate, and appreciate the +marvellous beauty of that coast. Before the broken member was whole +again, he had bought a tract of land and begun a villa. Small seed, to +furnish such a harvest! To the traveller of to-day the Riviera offers an +almost unbroken chain of beautiful residences from Marseilles to Genoa. + +A Briton willingly follows where a lord leads, and Cannes became the +centre of English fashion, a position it holds to-day in spite of many +attractive rivals, and the defection of Victoria who comes now to Cimiez, +back of Nice, being unwilling to visit Cannes since the sudden death +there of the Duke of Albany. A statue of Lord Brougham, the "discoverer" +of the littoral, has been erected in the sunny little square at Cannes, +and the English have in many other ways, stamped the city for their own. + +No other race carry their individuality with them as they do. They can +live years in a country and assimilate none of its customs; on the +contrary, imposing habits of their own. It is just this that makes them +such wonderful colonizers, and explains why you will find little groups +of English people drinking ale and playing golf in the shade of the +Pyramids or near the frozen slopes of Foosiyama. The real inwardness of +it is that they are a dull race, and, like dull people despise all that +they do not understand. To differ from them is to be in the wrong. They +cannot argue with you; they simply know, and that ends the matter. + +I had a discussion recently with a Briton on the pronunciation of a word. +As there is no "Institute," as in France, to settle matters of this kind, +I maintained that we Americans had as much authority for our +pronunciation of this particular word as the English. The answer was +characteristic. + +"I know I am right," said my Island friend, "because that is the way I +pronounce it!" + +Walking along the principal streets of Cannes to-day, you might imagine +yourself (except for the climate) at Cowes or Brighton, so British are +the shops and the crowd that passes them. Every restaurant advertises +"afternoon tea" and Bass's ale, and every other sign bears a London name. +This little matter of tea is particularly characteristic of the way the +English have imposed a taste of their own on a rebellious nation. Nothing +is further from the French taste than tea-drinking, and yet a Parisian +lady will now invite you gravely to "five o'clocker" with her, although I +can remember when that beverage was abhorred by the French as a medicine; +if you had asked a Frenchman to take a cup of tea, he would have +answered: + +"Why? I am not ill!" + +Even Paris (that supreme and undisputed arbiter of taste) has submitted +to English influence; tailor-made dresses and low-heeled shoes have +become as "good form" in France as in London. The last two Presidents of +the French Republic have taken the oath of office dressed in frock-coats +instead of the dress clothes to which French officials formerly clung as +to the sacraments. + +The municipalities of the little Southern cities were quick to seize +their golden opportunity, and everything was done to detain the rich +English wandering down towards Italy. Millions were spent in +transforming their cramped, dirty, little towns. Wide boulevards +bordered with palm and eucalyptus spread their sunny lines in all +directions, being baptized _Promenade des Anglais_ or _Boulevard +Victoria_, in artful flattery. The narrow mountain roads were widened, +casinos and theatres built and carnival _fetes_ organized, the cities +offering "cups" for yacht- or horse-races, and giving grounds for tennis +and golf clubs. Clever Southern people! The money returned to them a +hundredfold, and they lived to see their wild coast become the chosen +residence of the wealthiest aristocracy in Europe, and the rocky +hillsides blossom into terrace above terrace of villa gardens, where palm +and rose and geranium vie with the olive and the mimosa to shade the +white villas from the sun. To-day, no little town on the coast is +without its English chapel, British club, tennis ground, and golf links. +On a fair day at Monte Carlo, Nice, or Cannes, the prevailing +conversation is in English, and the handsome, well-dressed sons of Albion +lounge along beside their astonishing womankind as thoroughly at home as +on Bond Street. + +Those wonderful English women are the source of unending marvel and +amusement to the French. They can never understand them, and small +wonder, for with the exception of the small "set" that surrounds the +Prince of Wales, who are dressed in the Parisian fashion, all English +women seem to be overwhelmed with regret at not being born men, and to +have spent their time and ingenuity since, in trying to make up for +nature's mistake. Every masculine garment is twisted by them to fit the +female figure; their conversation, like that of their brothers, is about +horses and dogs; their hats and gloves are the same as the men's; and +when with their fine, large feet in stout shoes they start off, with that +particular swinging gait that makes the skirt seem superfluous, for a +stroll of twenty miles or so, Englishwomen do seem to the uninitiated to +have succeeded in their ambition of obliterating the difference between +the sexes. + +It is of an evening, however, when concealment is no longer possible, +that the native taste bursts forth, the Anglo-Saxon standing declared in +all her plainness. Strong is the contrast here, where they are placed +side by side with all that Europe holds of elegant, and well-dressed +Frenchwomen, whether of the "world" or the "half-world," are invariably +marvels of fitness and freshness, the simplest materials being converted +by their skilful touch into toilettes, so artfully adapted to the +wearer's figure and complexion, as to raise such "creations" to the level +of a fine art. + +An artist feels, he must fix on canvas that particular combination of +colors or that wonderful line of bust and hip. It is with a shudder that +he turns to the British matron, for she has probably, for this occasion, +draped herself in an "art material,"--principally "Liberty" silks of +dirty greens and blues (aesthetic shades!). He is tempted to cry out in +his disgust: "Oh, Liberty! Liberty! How many crimes are committed in +thy name!" It is one of the oddest things in the world that the English +should have elected to live so much in France, for there are probably +nowhere two peoples so diametrically opposed on every point, or who so +persistently and wilfully misunderstand each other, as the English and +the French. + +It has been my fate to live a good deal on both sides of the Channel, and +nothing is more amusing than to hear the absurdities that are gravely +asserted by each of their neighbors. To a Briton, a Frenchman will +always be "either tiger or monkey" according to Voltaire; while to the +French mind English gravity is only hypocrisy to cover every vice. +Nothing pleases him so much as a great scandal in England; he will +gleefully bring you a paper containing the account of it, to prove how +true is his opinion. It is quite useless to explain to the British mind, +as I have often tried to do, that all Frenchmen do not pass their lives +drinking absinthe on the boulevards; and as Englishmen seem to leave +their morals in a valise at Dover when off for a visit to Paris, to be +picked up on their return, it is time lost to try to make a Gaul +understand what good husbands and fathers the sons of Albion are. + +These two great nations seem to stand in the relation to each other that +Rome and Greece held. The English are the conquerors of the world, and +its great colonizers; with a vast capital in which wealth and misery +jostle each other on the streets; a hideous conglomeration of buildings +and monuments, without form and void, very much as old Rome must have +been under the Caesars, enormous buildings without taste, and enormous +wealth. The French have inherited the temperament of the Greeks. The +drama, painting, and sculpture are the preoccupation of the people. The +yearly exhibitions are, for a month before they open, the unique subject +of conversation in drawing-room or club. The state protects the artist +and buys his work. Their _conservatoires_ form the singers, and their +schools the painters and architects of Europe and America. + +The English copy them in their big way, just as the Romans copied the +masterpieces of Greek art, while they despised the authors. It is rare +that a play succeeds in Paris which is not instantly translated and +produced in London, often with the adapter's name printed on the +programme in place of the author's, the Frenchman, who only wrote it, +being ignored. Just as the Greeks faded away and disappeared before +their Roman conquerors, it is to be feared that in our day this people of +a finer clay will succumb. The "defects of their qualities" will be +their ruin. They will stop at home, occupied with literature and art, +perfecting their dainty cities; while their tougher neighbors are +dominating the globe, imposing their language and customs on the +conquered peoples or the earth. One feels this on the Riviera. It +reminds you of the cuckoo who, once installed in a robin's nest, that +seems to him convenient and warmly located in the sunshine, ends by +kicking out all the young robins. + + + + +No. 23--A Common Weakness + + +Governments may change and all the conditions of life be modified, but +certain ambitions and needs of man remain immutable. Climates, customs, +centuries, have in no way diminished the craving for consideration, the +desire to be somebody, to bear some mark indicating to the world that one +is not as other men. + +For centuries titles supplied the want. This satisfaction has been +denied to us, so ambitious souls are obliged to seek other means to feed +their vanity. + +Even before we were born into the world of nations, an attempt was made +amongst the aristocratically minded court surrounding our chief +magistrate, to form a society that should (without the name) be the +beginning of a class apart. + +The order of the Cincinnati was to have been the nucleus of an American +nobility. The tendencies of this society are revealed by the fact that +primogeniture was its fundamental law. Nothing could have been more +opposed to the spirit of the age, nor more at variance with the +declaration of our independence, than the insertion of such a clause. +This fact was discovered by the far-seeing eye of Washington, and the +society was suppressed in the hope (shared by almost all contemporaries) +that with new forms of government the nature of man would undergo a +transformation and rise above such puerile ambitions. + +Time has shown the fallacy of these dreams. All that has been +accomplished is the displacement of the objective point; the desire, the +mania for a handle to one's name is as prevalent as ever. Leave the +centres of civilization and wander in the small towns and villages of our +country. Every other man you meet is introduced as the Colonel or the +Judge, and you will do well not to inquire too closely into the matter, +nor to ask to see the title-deeds to such distinctions. On the other +hand, to omit his prefix in addressing one of these local magnates, would +be to offend him deeply. The women-folk were quick to borrow a little of +this distinction, and in Washington to-day one is gravely presented to +Mrs. Senator Smith or Mrs. Colonel Jones. The climax being reached by +one aspiring female who styles herself on her visiting cards, "Mrs. +Acting-Assistant-Paymaster Robinson." If by any chance it should occur +to any one to ask her motive in sporting such an unwieldy handle, she +would say that she did it "because one can't be going about explaining +that one is not just ordinary Mrs. Robinson or Thompson, like the +thousand others in town." A woman who cannot find an excuse for assuming +such a prefix will sometime have recourse to another stratagem, to +particularize an ordinary surname. She remembers that her husband, who +ever since he was born has been known to everybody as Jim, is the proud +possessor of the middle name Ivanhoe, or Pericles (probably the result of +a romantic mother's reading); so one fine day the young couple bloom out +as Mr. and Mrs. J. Pericles Sparks, to the amusement of their friends, +their own satisfaction, and the hopeless confusion of their tradespeople. + +Not long ago a Westerner, who went abroad with a travelling show, was +received with enthusiasm in England because it was thought "The +Honorable" which preceded his name on his cards implied that although an +American he was somehow the son of an earl. As a matter of fact he owed +this title to having sat, many years before in the Senate of a +far-western State. He will cling to that "Honorable" and print it on his +cards while life lasts. I was told the other day of an American carpet +warrior who appeared at court function abroad decorated with every +college badge, and football medal in his possession, to which he added at +the last moment a brass trunk check, to complete the brilliancy of the +effect. This latter decoration attracted the attention of the Heir +Apparent, who inquired the meaning of the mystic "416" upon it. This +would have been a "facer" to any but a true son of Uncle Sam. Nothing +daunted, however, our "General" replied "That, Sir, is the number of +pitched battles I have won." + +I have my doubts as to the absolute veracity of this tale. But that the +son of one of our generals, appeared not long ago at a public reception +abroad, wearing his father's medals and decorations, is said to be true. +Decorations on the Continent are official badges of distinction conferred +and recognized by the different governments. An American who wears, out +of his own country, an army or college badge which has no official +existence, properly speaking, being recognized by no government, but +which is made intentionally to look as much as possible like the "Legion +d'Honneur," is deliberately imposing on the ignorance of foreigners, and +is but little less of a pretentious idiot than the owners of the trunk +check and the borrowed decorations. + +There seems no end to the ways a little ambitious game can be played. One +device much in favor is for the wife to attach her own family name to +that of her husband by means of a hyphen. By this arrangement she does +not entirely lose her individuality; as a result we have a splendid +assortment of hybrid names, such as Van Cortland-Smith and Beekman-Brown. +Be they never so incongruous these double-barrelled cognomens serve their +purpose and raise ambitious mortals above the level of other Smiths and +Browns. Finding that this arrangement works well in their own case, it +is passed on to the next generation. There are no more Toms and Bills in +these aspiring days. The little boys are all Cadwalladers or Carrolls. +Their school-fellows, however, work sad havoc with these high-sounding +titles and quickly abbreviate them into humble "Cad" or "Rol." + +It is surprising to notice what a number of middle-aged gentlemen have +blossomed out of late with decorations in their button-holes according to +the foreign fashion. On inquiry I have discovered that these ornaments +designate members of the G.A.R., the Loyal Legion, or some local Post, +for the rosettes differ in form and color. When these gentlemen travel +abroad, to reduce their waists or improve their minds, the effects on the +hotel waiters and cabmen must be immense. They will be charged three +times the ordinary tariff instead of only the double which is the +stranger's usual fate at the hands of simple-minded foreigners. The +satisfaction must be cheap, however, at that price. + +Even our wise men and sages do not seem to have escaped the contagion. +One sees professors and clergymen (who ought to set a better example) +trailing half a dozen letters after their names, initials which to the +initiated doubtless mean something, but which are also intended to fill +the souls of the ignorant with envy. I can recall but one case of a +foreign decoration being refused by a compatriot. He was a genius and we +all know that geniuses are crazy. This gentleman had done something +particularly gratifying to an Eastern potentate, who in return offered +him one of his second-best orders. It was at once refused. When urged +on him a second time our countryman lost his temper and answered, "If you +want to give it to somebody, present it to my valet. He is most anxious +to be decorated." And it was done! + +It does not require a deeply meditative mind to discover the motives of +ambitious struggles. The first and strongest illusion of the human mind +is to believe that we are different from our fellows, and our natural +impulse is to try and impress this belief upon others. + +Pride of birth is but one of the manifestations of the universal +weakness--invariably taking stronger and stronger hold of the people, who +from the modest dimension of their income, or other untoward +circumstances, can find no outward and visible form with which to dazzle +the world. You will find that a desire to shine is the secret of most of +the tips and presents that are given while travelling or visiting, for +they can hardly be attributed to pure spontaneous generosity. + +How many people does one meet who talk of their poor and unsuccessful +relatives while omitting to mention rich and powerful connections? We +are told that far from blaming such a tendency we are to admire it. That +it is proper pride to put one's best foot forward and keep an offending +member well out of sight, that the man who wears a rosette in the button- +hole of his coat and has half the alphabet galloping after his name, is +an honor to his family. + +Far be it from me to deride this weakness in others, for in my heart I am +persuaded that if I lived in China, nothing would please me more than to +have my cap adorned with a coral button, while if fate had cast my life +in the pleasant places of central Africa, a ring in my nose would +doubtless have filled my soul with joy. The fact that I share this +weakness does not, however, prevent my laughing at such folly in others. + + + + +No. 24--Changing Paris + + +Paris is beginning to show signs of the coming "Exhibition of 1900," and +is in many ways going through a curious stage of transformation, socially +as well as materially. The _Palais De l'Industrie_, familiar to all +visitors here, as the home of the _Salons_, the Horse Shows, and a +thousand gay _fetes_ and merry-makings, is being torn down to make way +for the new avenue leading, with the bridge Alexander III., from the +Champs Elysees to the Esplanade des Invalides. This thoroughfare with +the gilded dome of Napoleon's tomb to close its perspective is intended +to be the feature of the coming "show." + +Curious irony of things in this world! The _Palais De l'Industrie_ was +intended to be the one permanent building of the exhibition of 1854. An +old "Journal" I often read tells how the writer saw the long line of +gilded coaches (borrowed from Versailles for the occasion), eight horses +apiece, led by footmen--horses and men blazing in embroidered +trappings--leave the Tuileries and proceed at a walk to the great gateway +of the now disappearing palace. Victoria and Albert who were on an +official visit to the Emperor were the first to alight; then Eugenie in +the radiance of her perfect beauty stepped from the coach (sad omen!) +that fifty years before had taken Josephine in tears to Malmaison. + +It may interest some ladies to know how an Empress was dressed on that +spring morning forty-four years ago. She wore rose-colored silk with an +over-dress (I think that is what it is called) of black lace flounces, +immense hoops, and a black _Chantilly_ lace shawl. Her hair, a brilliant +golden auburn, was dressed low on the temples, covering the ears, and +hung down her back in a gold net almost to her waist; at the extreme back +of her head was placed a black and rose-colored bonnet; open "flowing" +sleeves showed her bare arms, one-buttoned, straw-colored gloves, and +ruby bracelets; she carried a tiny rose-colored parasol not a foot in +diameter. + +How England's great sovereign was dressed the writer of the journal does +not so well remember, for in those days Eugenie was the cynosure of all +eyes, and people rarely looked at anything else when they could get a +glimpse of her lovely face. + +It appears, however, that the Queen sported an India shawl, hoops, and a +green bonnet, which was not particularly becoming to her red face. She +and Napoleon entered the building first; the Empress (who was in delicate +health) was carried in an open chair, with Prince Albert walking at her +side, a marvellously handsome couple to follow the two dowdy little +sovereigns who preceded them. The writer had by bribery succeeded in +getting places in an _entresol_ window under the archway, and was greatly +impressed to see those four great ones laughing and joking together over +Eugenie's trouble in getting her hoops into the narrow chair! + +What changes have come to that laughing group! Two are dead, one dying +in exile and disgrace; and it would be hard to find in the two rheumatic +old ladies whom one sees pottering about the Riviera now, any trace of +those smiling wives. In France it is as if a tidal wave had swept over +Napoleon's court. Only the old palace stood severely back from the +Champs Elysees, as if guarding its souvenirs. The pick of the mason has +brought down the proud gateway which its imperial builder fondly imagined +was to last for ages. The Tuileries preceded it into oblivion. The +Alpha and Omega of that gorgeous pageant of the fifties vanished like a +mirage! + +It is not here alone one finds Paris changing. A railway is being +brought along the quais with its depot at the Invalides. Another is to +find its terminus opposite the Louvre, where the picturesque ruin of the +Cour des Comptes has stood half-hidden by the trees since 1870. A line +of electric cars crosses the Rond Point, in spite of the opposition of +all the neighborhood, anxious to keep, at least that fine perspective +free from such desecration. And, last but not least, there is every +prospect of an immense system of elevated railways being inaugurated in +connection with the coming world's fair. The direction of this kind of +improvement is entirely in the hands of the Municipal Council, and that +body has become (here in Paris) extremely radical, not to say +communistic; and takes pleasure in annoying the inhabitants of the richer +quarters of the city, under pretext of improvements and facilities of +circulation. + +It is easy to see how strong the feeling is against the aristocratic +class. Nor is it much to be wondered at! The aristocracy seem to try to +make themselves unpopular. They detest the republic, which has shorn +them of their splendor, and do everything in their power (socially and +diplomatically their power is still great) to interfere with and +frustrate the plans of the government. Only last year they seized an +opportunity at the funerals of the Duchesse d'Alencon and the Duc +d'Aumale to make a royalist manifestation of the most pronounced +character. The young Duchesse d'Orleans was publicly spoken of and +treated as the "Queen of France;" at the private receptions given during +her stay in Paris the same ceremonial was observed as if she had been +really on the throne. The young Duke, her husband, was not present, +being in exile as a pretender, but armorial bearings of the "reigning +family," as their followers insist on calling them, were hung around the +Madeleine and on the funeral-cars of both the illustrious dead. + +The government is singularly lenient to the aristocrats. If a poor man +cries "Long live the Commune!" in the street, he is arrested. The +police, however, stood quietly by and let a group of the old nobility +shout "Long live the Queen!" as the train containing the young Duchesse +d'Orleans moved out of the station. The secret of this leniency toward +the "pretenders" to the throne, is that they are very little feared. If +it amuses a set of wealthy people to play at holding a court, the strong +government of the republic cares not one jot. The Orleans family have +never been popular in France, and the young pretender's marriage to an +Austrian Archduchess last year has not improved matters. + +It is the fashion in the conservative Faubourg St. Germain, to ridicule +the President, his wife and their bourgeois surroundings, as forty years +ago the parents of these aristocrats affected to despise the imperial +_parvenus_. The swells amused themselves during the official visit of +the Emperor and Empress of Russia last year (which was gall and wormwood +to them) by exaggerating and repeating all the small slips in etiquette +that the President, an intelligent, but simple-mannered gentleman, was +supposed to have made during the sojourn of his imperial guests. + +Both M. and Mme. Faure are extremely popular with the people, and are +heartily cheered whenever they are seen in public. The President is the +despair of the lovers of routine and etiquette, walking in and out of his +Palais of the Elysee, like a private individual, and breaking all rules +and regulations. He is fond of riding, and jogs off to the Bois of a +morning with no escort, and often of an evening drops in at the theatres +in a casual way. The other night at the Francais he suddenly appeared in +the _foyer des artistes_ (a beautiful greenroom, hung with historical +portraits of great actors and actresses, one of the prides of the +theatre) in this informal manner. Mme. Bartet, who happened to be there +alone at the time, was so impressed at such an unprecedented event that +she fainted, and the President had to run for water and help revive her. +The next day he sent the great actress a beautiful vase of Sevres china, +full of water, in souvenir. + +To a lover of old things and old ways any changes in the Paris he has +known and loved are a sad trial. Henri Drumont, in his delightful _Mon +Vieux Paris_, deplores this modern mania for reform which has done such +good work in the new quarters but should, he thinks, respect the historic +streets and shady squares. + +One naturally feels that the sights familiar in youth lose by being +transformed and doubts the necessity of such improvements. + +The Rome of my childhood is no more! Half of Cairo was ruthlessly +transformed in sixty-five into a hideous caricature of modern Paris. +Milan has been remodelled, each city losing in charm as it gained in +convenience. + +So far Paris has held her own. The spirit of the city has not been lost, +as in the other capitals. The fair metropolis of France, in spite of +many transformations, still holds her admirers with a dominating sway. +She pours out for them a strong elixir that once tasted takes the flavor +out of existence in other cities and makes her adorers, when in exile, +thirst for another draught of the subtle nectar. + + + + +No. 25--Contentment + + +As the result of certain ideal standards adopted among us when this +country was still in long clothes, a time when the equality of man was +the new "fad" of many nations, and the prizes of life first came within +the reach of those fortunate or unscrupulous enough to seize them, it +became the fashion (and has remained so down to our day) to teach every +little boy attending a village school to look upon himself as a possible +future President, and to assume that every girl was preparing herself for +the position of first lady in the land. This is very well in theory, and +practice has shown that, as Napoleon said, "Every private may carry a +marshal's baton in his knapsack." Alongside of the good such incentive +may produce, it is only fair, however, to consider also how much harm may +lie in this way of presenting life to a child's mind. + +As a first result of such tall talking we find in America, more than in +any other country, an inclination among all classes to leave the +surroundings where they were born and bend their energies to struggling +out of the position in life occupied by their parents. There are not +wanting theorists who hold that this is a quality in a nation, and that +it leads to great results. A proposition open to discussion. + +It is doubtless satisfactory to designate first magistrates who have +raised themselves from humble beginnings to that proud position, and +there are times when it is proper to recall such achievements to the +rising generation. But as youth is proverbially over-confident it might +also be well to point out, without danger of discouraging our sanguine +youngsters, that for one who has succeeded, about ten million confident +American youths, full of ambition and lofty aims, have been obliged to +content themselves with being honest men in humble positions, even as +their fathers before them. A sad humiliation, I grant you, for a self- +respecting citizen, to end life just where his father did; often the +case, nevertheless, in this hard world, where so many fine qualities go +unappreciated,--no societies having as yet been formed to seek out "mute, +inglorious Miltons," and ask to crown them! + +To descend abruptly from the sublime, to very near the ridiculous,--I had +need last summer of a boy to go with a lady on a trap and help about the +stable. So I applied to a friend's coachman, a hard-working Englishman, +who was delighted to get the place for his nephew--an American-born +boy--the child of a sister, in great need. As the boy's clothes were +hardly presentable, a simple livery was made for him; from that moment he +pined, and finally announced he was going to leave. In answer to my +surprised inquiries, I discovered that a friend of his from the same +tenement-house in which he had lived in New York had appeared in the +village, and sooner than be seen in livery by his play-fellow he +preferred abandoning his good place, the chance of being of aid to his +mother, and learning an honorable way to earn his living. Remonstrances +were in vain; to the wrath of his uncle, he departed. The boy had, at +his school, heard so much about everybody being born equal and every +American being a gentleman by right of inheritance, that he had taken +himself seriously, and despised a position his uncle was proud to hold, +preferring elegant leisure in his native tenement-house to the +humiliation of a livery. + +When at college I had rooms in a neat cottage owned by an American +family. The father was a butcher, as were his sons. The only daughter +was exceedingly pretty. The hard-worked mother conceived high hopes for +this favorite child. She was sent to a boarding-school, from which she +returned entirely unsettled for life, having learned little except to be +ashamed of her parents and to play on the piano. One of these +instruments of torture was bought, and a room fitted up as a parlor for +the daughter's use. As the family were fairly well-to-do, she was +allowed to dress out of all keeping with her parents' position, and, +egged on by her mother, tried her best to marry a rich "student." Failing +in this, she became discontented, unhappy, and finally there was a +scandal, this poor victim of a false ambition going to swell the vast +tide of a city's vice. With a sensible education, based on the idea that +her father's trade was honorable and that her mission in life was to aid +her mother in the daily work until she might marry and go to her husband, +prepared by experience to cook his dinner and keep his house clean, and +finally bring up her children to be honest men and women, this girl would +have found a happy future waiting for her, and have been of some good in +her humble way. + +It is useless to multiply illustrations. One has but to look about him +in this unsettled country of ours. The other day in front of my door the +perennial ditch was being dug for some gas-pipe or other. Two of the +gentlemen who had consented to do this labor wore frock-coats and top +hats--or what had once been those articles of attire--instead of +comfortable and appropriate overalls. Why? Because, like the stable- +boy, to have worn any distinctive dress would have been in their minds to +stamp themselves as belonging to an inferior class, and so interfered +with their chances of representing this country later at the Court of St. +James, or presiding over the Senate,--positions (to judge by their +criticism of the present incumbents) they feel no doubt as to their +ability to fill. + +The same spirit pervades every trade. The youth who shaves me is not a +barber; he has only accepted this position until he has time to do +something better. The waiter who brings me my chop at a down-town +restaurant would resign his place if he were requested to shave his +flowing mustache, and is secretly studying law. I lose all patience with +my countrymen as I think over it! Surely we are not such a race of snobs +as not to recognize that a good barber is more to be respected than a +poor lawyer; that, as a French saying goes, _Il n'y a pas de sot metier_. +It is only the fool who is ashamed of his trade. + +But enough of preaching. I had intended--when I took up my pen to-day--to +write on quite another form of this modern folly, this eternal struggle +upward into circles for which the struggler is fitted neither by his +birth nor his education; the above was to have been but a preface to the +matter I had in mind, viz., "social climbers," those scourges of modern +society, the people whom no rebuffs will discourage and no cold shoulder +chill, whose efforts have done so much to make our countrymen a byword +abroad. + +As many philosophers teach that trouble only is positive, happiness being +merely relative; that in any case trouble is pretty equally distributed +among the different conditions of mankind; that, excepting the destitute +and physically afflicted, all God's creatures have a share of joy in +their lives, would it not be more logical, as well as more conducive to +the general good, if a little more were done to make the young contented +with their lot in life, instead of constantly suggesting to a race +already prone to be unsettled, that nothing short of the top is worthy of +an American citizen? + + + + +No. 26--The Climber + + +That form of misplaced ambition, which is the subject of the preceding +chapter, can only be regarded seriously when it occurs among simple and +sincere people, who, however derided, honestly believe that they are +doing their duty to themselves and their families when they move heaven +and earth to rise a few steps in the world. The moment we find ambition +taking a purely social form, it becomes ridiculous. The aim is so paltry +in comparison with the effort, and so out of proportion with the energy- +exerted to attain it, that one can only laugh and wonder! Unfortunately, +signs of this puerile spirit (peculiar to the last quarter of the +nineteenth century) can be seen on all hands and in almost every society. + +That any man or woman should make it the unique aim and object of +existence to get into a certain "set," not from any hope of profit or +benefit, nor from the belief that it is composed of brilliant and amusing +people, but simply because it passes for being exclusive and difficult of +access, does at first seem incredible. + +That humble young painters or singers should long to know personally the +great lights of their professions, and should strive to be accepted among +them is easily understood, since the aspirants can reap but benefit, +present and future, from such companionship. That a rising politician +should deem it all-important to be on friendly terms with the "bosses" is +not astonishing, for those magnates have it in their power to make or mar +his fortune. But in a _milieu_ as fluctuating as any social circle must +necessarily be, shading off on all sides and changing as constantly as +light on water, the end can never be considered as achieved or the goal +attained. + +Neither does any particular result accompany success, more substantial +than the moral one which lies in self-congratulation. That, however, is +enough for a climber if she is bitten with the "ascending" madness. (I +say "she," because this form of ambition is more frequent among women, +although by no means unknown to the sterner sex.) + +It amuses me vastly to sit in my corner and watch one of these _fin-de- +siecle_ diplomatists work out her little problem. She generally comes +plunging into our city from outside, hot for conquest, making +acquaintances right and left, indiscriminately; thus falling an easy prey +to the wolves that prowl around the edges of society, waiting for just +such lambs to devour. Her first entertainments are worth attending for +she has ingeniously contrived to get together all the people she should +have left out, and failed to attract the social lights and powers of the +moment. If she be a quick-witted lady, she soon sees the error of her +ways and begins a process of "weeding"--as difficult as it is unwise, +each rejected "weed" instantly becoming an enemy for life, not to speak +of the risk she, in her ignorance, runs of mistaking for "detrimentals" +the _fines fleurs_ of the worldly parterre. Ah! the way of the Climber +is hard; she now begins to see that her path is not strewn with flowers. + +One tactful person of this kind, whose gradual "unfolding" was watched +with much amusement and wonder by her acquaintances, avoided all these +errors by going in early for a "dear friend." Having, after mature +reflection, chosen her guide among the most exclusive of the young +matrons, she proceeded quietly to pay her court _en regle_. Flattering +little notes, boxes of candy, and bunches of flowers were among the forms +her devotion took. As a natural result, these two ladies became +inseparable, and the most hermetically sealed doors opened before the new +arrival. + +A talent for music or acting is another aid. A few years ago an entire +family were floated into the desired haven on the waves of the sister's +voice, and one young couple achieved success by the husband's aptitude +for games and sports. In the latter case it was the man of the family +who did the work, dragging his wife up after him. A polo pony is hardly +one's idea of a battle-horse, but in this case it bore its rider on to +success. + +Once climbers have succeeded in installing themselves in the stronghold +of their ambitions, they become more exclusive than their new friends +ever dreamed of being, and it tries one's self-restraint to hear these +new arrivals deploring "the levelling tendencies of the age," or +wondering "how nice people can be beginning to call on those horrid So- +and-Sos. Their father sold shoes, you know." This ultra-exclusiveness +is not to be wondered at. The only attraction the circle they have just +entered has for the climbers is its exclusiveness, and they do not intend +that it shall lose its market value in their hands. Like Baudelaire, +they believe that "it is only the small number saved that makes the charm +of Paradise." Having spent hard cash in this investment, they have every +intention of getting their money's worth. + +In order to give outsiders a vivid impression of the footing on which +they stand with the great of the world, all the women they have just met +become Nellys and Jennys, and all the men Dicks and Freds--behind their +backs, _bien entendu_--for Mrs. "Newcome" has not yet reached that point +of intimacy which warrants using such abbreviations directly to the +owners. + +Another amiable weakness common to the climber is that of knowing +everybody. No name can be mentioned at home or abroad but Parvenu +happens to be on the most intimate terms with the owner, and when he is +conversing, great names drop out of his mouth as plentifully as did the +pearls from the pretty lips of the girl in the fairy story. All the +world knows how such a gentleman, being asked on his return from the East +if he had seen "the Dardanelles," answered, "Oh, dear, yes! I dined with +them several times!" thus settling satisfactorily his standing in the +Orient! + +Climbing, like every other habit, soon takes possession of the whole +nature. To abstain from it is torture. Napoleon, we are told, found it +impossible to rest contented on his successes, but was impelled onward by +a force stronger than his volition. In some such spirit the ambitious +souls here referred to, after "the Conquest of America" and the discovery +that the fruit of their struggles was not worth very much, victory having +brought the inevitable satiety in its wake, sail away in search of new +fields of adventure. They have long ago left behind the friends and +acquaintances of their childhood. Relations they apparently have none, +which accounts for the curious phenomenon that a parvenu is never in +mourning. As no friendships bind them to their new circle, the ties are +easily loosened. Why should they care for one city more than for +another, unless it offer more of the sport they love? This continent has +become tame, since there is no longer any struggle, while over the sea +vast hunting grounds and game worthy of their powder, form an +irresistible temptation--old and exclusive societies to be besieged, and +contests to be waged compared to which their American experiences are but +light skirmishes. As the polo pony is supposed to pant for the fray, so +the hearts of social conquerors warm within them at the prospect of more +brilliant victories. + +The pleasure of following them on their hunting parties abroad will have +to be deferred, so vast is the subject, so full of thrilling adventure +and, alas! also of humiliating defeat. + + + + +No. 27--The Last of the Dandies + + +So completely has the dandy disappeared from among us, that even the word +has an old-time look (as if it had strayed out of some half-forgotten +novel or "keepsake"), raising in our minds the picture of a slender, +clean-shaven youth, in very tight unmentionables strapped under his feet, +a dark green frock-coat with a collar up to the ears and a stock whose +folds cover his chest, butter-colored gloves, and a hat--oh! a hat that +would collect a crowd in two minutes in any neighborhood! A gold-headed +stick, and a quizzing glass, with a black ribbon an inch wide, complete +the toilet. In such a rig did the swells of the last generation stroll +down Pall Mall or drive their tilburys in the Bois. + +The recent illness of the Prince de Sagan has made a strange and sad +impression in many circles in Paris, for he has always been a favorite, +and is the last surviving type of a now extinct species. He is the last +Dandy! No understudy will be found to fill his role--the dude and the +swell are whole generations away from the dandy, of which they are but +feeble reflections--the comedy will have to be continued now, without its +leading gentleman. With his head of silvery hair, his eye-glass and his +wonderful waistcoats, he held the first place in the "high life" of the +French capital. + +No first night or ball was complete without him, Sagan. The very mention +of his name in their articles must have kept the wolf from the door of +needy reporters. No _debutante_, social or theatrical, felt sure of her +success until it had received the hall-mark of his approval. When he +assisted at a dress rehearsal, the actors and the managers paid him more +attention than Sarcey or Sardou, for he was known to be the real arbiter +of their fate. His word was law, the world bowed before it as before the +will of an autocrat. Mature matrons received his dictates with the same +reverence that the Old Guard evinced for Napoleon's orders. Had he not +led them on to victory in their youth? + +On the boulevards or at a race-course, he was the one person always known +by sight and pointed out. "There goes Sagan!" He had become an +institution. One does not know exactly how or why he achieved the +position, which made him the most followed, flattered, and copied man of +his day. It certainly was unique! + +The Prince of Sagan is descended from Maurice de Saxe (the natural son of +the King of Saxony and Aurora of Koenigsmark), who in his day shone +brilliantly at the French court and was so madly loved by Adrienne +Lecouvreur. From his great ancestor, Sagan inherited the title of Grand +Duke Of Courland (the estates have been absorbed into a neighboring +empire). Nevertheless, he is still an R.H., and when crowned heads visit +Paris they dine with him and receive him on a footing of equality. He +married a great fortune, and the daughter of the banker Selliere. Their +house on the Esplanade des Invalides has been for years the centre of +aristocratic life in Paris; not the most exclusive circle, but certainly +the gayest of this gay capital, and from the days of Louis Philippe he +has given the keynote to the fast set. + +Oddly enough, he has always been a great favorite with the lower classes +(a popularity shared by all the famous dandies of history). The people +appear to find in them the personification of all aspirations toward the +elegant and the ideal. Alcibiades, Buckingham, the Duc de Richelieu, +Lord Seymour, Comte d'Orsay, Brummel, Grammont-Caderousse, shared this +favor, and have remained legendary characters, to whom their disdain for +everything vulgar, their worship of their own persons, and many costly +follies gave an ephemeral empire. Their power was the more arbitrary and +despotic in that it was only nominal and undefined, allowing them to rule +over the fashions, the tastes, and the pastimes of their contemporaries +with undivided sway, making them envied, obeyed, loved, but rarely +overthrown. + +It has been asserted by some writers that dandies are necessary and +useful to a nation (Thackeray admired them and pointed out that they have +a most difficult and delicate role to play, hence their rarity), and that +these butterflies, as one finds them in the novels of that day, the de +Marsys, the Pelhams, the Maxime de Trailles, are indispensable to the +perfection of society. It is a great misfortune to a country to have no +dandies, those supreme virtuosos of taste and distinction. Germany, +which glories in Mozart and Kant, Goethe and Humboldt, the country of +deep thinkers and brave soldiers, never had a great dandy, and so has +remained behind England or France in all that constitutes the graceful +side of life, the refinements of social intercourse, and the art of +living. France will perceive too late, after he has disappeared, the +loss she has sustained when this Prince, Grand Seigneur, has ceased to +embellish by his presence her race-courses and "first nights." A +reputation like his cannot be improvised in a moment, and he has no +pupils. + +Never did the aristocracy of a country stand in greater need of such a +representation, than in these days of tramcars and "fixed-price" +restaurants. An entire "art" dies with him. It has been whispered that +he has not entirely justified his reputation, that the accounts of his +exploits as a _haut viveur_ have gained in the telling. Nevertheless he +dominated an epoch, rising above the tumultuous and levelling society of +his day, a tardy Don Quixote, of the knighthood of pleasures, _fetes_, +loves and prodigalities, which are no longer of our time. His great +name, his grand manner, his elderly graces, his serene carelessness, made +him a being by himself. No one will succeed this master of departed +elegances. If he does not recover from his attack, if the paralysis does +not leave that poor brain, worn out with doing nothing, we can honestly +say that he is the last of his kind. + +An original and independent thinker has asserted that civilizations, +societies, empires, and republics go down to posterity typified for the +admiration of mankind, each under the form of some hero. Emerson would +have given a place in his Pantheon to Sagan. For it is he who sustained +the traditions and became the type of that distinguished and frivolous +society, which judged that serious things were of no importance, +enthusiasm a waste of time, literature a bore; that nothing was +interesting and worthy of occupying their attention except the elegant +distractions that helped to pass their days-and nights! He had the merit +(?) in these days of the practical and the commonplace, of preserving in +his gracious person all the charming uselessness of a courtier in a +country where there was no longer a court. + +What a strange sight it would be if this departing dandy could, before he +leaves for ever the theatre of so many triumphs, take his place at some +street corner, and review the shades of the companions his long life had +thrown him with, the endless procession of departed belles and beaux, +who, in their youth, had, under his rule, helped to dictate the fashions +and lead the sports of a world. + + + + +No. 28--A Nation on the Wing + + +On being taken the other day through a large and costly residence, with +the thoroughness that only the owner of a new house has the cruelty to +inflict on his victims, not allowing them to pass a closet or an electric +bell without having its particular use and convenience explained, forcing +them to look up coal-slides, and down air-shafts and to visit every +secret place, from the cellar to the fire-escape, I noticed that a +peculiar arrangement of the rooms repeated itself on each floor, and +several times on a floor. I remarked it to my host. + +"You observe it," he said, with a blush of pride, "it is my wife's idea! +The truth is, my daughters are of a marrying age, and my sons starting +out for themselves; this house will soon be much too big for two old +people to live in alone. We have planned it so that at any time it can +be changed into an apartment house at a nominal expense. It is even +wired and plumbed with that end in view!" + +This answer positively took my breath away. I looked at my host in +amazement. It was hard to believe that a man past middle age, who after +years of hardest toil could afford to put half a million into a house for +himself and his children, and store it with beautiful things, would have +the courage to look so far into the future as to see all his work undone, +his home turned to another use and himself and his wife afloat in the +world without a roof over their wealthy old heads. + +Surely this was the Spirit of the Age in its purest expression, the more +strikingly so that he seemed to feel pride rather than anything else in +his ingenious combination. + +He liked the city he had built in well enough now, but nothing proved to +him that he would like it later. He and his wife had lived in twenty +cities since they began their brave fight with Fortune, far away in a +little Eastern town. They had since changed their abode with each +ascending rung of the ladder of success, and beyond a faded daguerreotype +or two of their children and a few modest pieces of jewelry, stored away +in cotton, it is doubtful if they owned a single object belonging to +their early life. + +Another case occurs to me. Near the village where I pass my summers, +there lived an elderly, childless couple on a splendid estate combining +everything a fastidious taste could demand. One fine morning this place +was sold, the important library divided between the village and their +native city, the furniture sold or given away,--everything went; at the +end the things no one wanted were made into a bon-fire and burned. + +A neighbor asking why all this was being done was told by the lady, "We +were tired of it all and have decided to be 'Bohemians' for the rest of +our lives." This couple are now wandering about Europe and half a dozen +trunks contain their belongings. + +These are, of course, extreme cases and must be taken for what they are +worth; nevertheless they are straws showing which way the wind blows, +signs of the times that he who runs may read. I do not run, but I often +saunter up our principal avenue, and always find myself wondering what +will be the future of the splendid residences that grace that +thoroughfare as it nears the Park; the ascending tide of trade is already +circling round them and each year sees one or more crumble away and +disappear. + +The finer buildings may remain, turned into clubs or restaurants, but the +greater part of the newer ones are so ill-adapted to any other use than +that for which they are built that their future seems obscure. + +That fashion will flit away from its present haunts there can be little +doubt; the city below the Park is sure to be given up to business, and +even the fine frontage on that green space will sooner or later be +occupied by hotels, if not stores; and he who builds with any belief in +the permanency of his surroundings must indeed be of a hopeful +disposition. + +A good lady occupying a delightful corner on this same avenue, opposite a +one-story florist's shop, said: + +"I shall remain here until they build across the way; then I suppose I +shall have to move." + +So after all the man who is contented to live in a future apartment +house, may not be so very far wrong. + +A case of the opposite kind is that of a great millionaire, who, dying, +left his house and its collections to his eldest son and his grandson +after him, on the condition that they should continue to live in it. + +Here was an attempt to keep together a home with its memories and +associations. What has been the result? The street that was a charming +centre for residences twenty years ago has become a "slum;" the +unfortunate heirs find themselves with a house on their hands that they +cannot live in and are forbidden to rent or sell. As a final result the +will must in all probability be broken and the matter ended. + +Of course the reason for a great deal of this is the phenomenal growth of +our larger cities. Hundreds of families who would gladly remain in their +old homes are fairly pushed out of them by the growth of business. + +Everything has its limits and a time must come when our cities will cease +to expand or when centres will be formed as in London or Paris, where +generations may succeed each other in the same homes. So far, I see no +indications of any such crystallization in this our big city; we seem to +be condemned like the "Wandering Jew" or poor little "Joe" to be +perpetually "moving on." + +At a dinner of young people not long ago a Frenchman visiting our +country, expressed his surprise on hearing a girl speak of "not +remembering the house she was born in." Piqued by his manner the young +lady answered: + +"We are twenty-four at this table. I do not believe there is one person +here living in the house in which he or she was born." This assertion +raised a murmur of dissent around the table; on a census being taken it +proved, however, to be true. + +How can one expect, under circumstances like these, to find any great +respect among young people for home life or the conservative side of +existence? They are born as it were on the wing, and on the wing will +they live. + +The conditions of life in this country, although contributing largely to +such a state of affairs, must not be held, however, entirely responsible. +Underlying our civilization and culture, there is still strong in us a +wild nomadic strain inherited from a thousand generations of wandering +ancestors, which breaks out so soon as man is freed from the restraint +incumbent on bread-winning for his family. The moment there is wealth or +even a modest income insured, comes the inclination to cut loose from the +dull routine of business and duty, returning instinctively to the +migratory habits of primitive man. + +We are not the only nation that has given itself up to globe-trotting; it +is strong in the English, in spite of their conservative education, and +it is surprising to see the number of formerly stay-at-home French and +Germans one meets wandering in foreign lands. + +In 1855, a Londoner advertised the plan he had conceived of taking some +people over to visit the International Exhibition in Paris. For a fixed +sum paid in advance he offered to provide everything and act as courier +to the party, and succeeded with the greatest difficulty in getting +together ten people. From this modest beginning has grown the vast +undertaking that to-day covers the globe with tourists, from the frozen +seas where they "do" the midnight sun, to the deserts three thousand +miles up the Nile. + +As I was returning a couple of years ago _via_ Vienna from +Constantinople, the train was filled with a party of our compatriots +conducted by an agency of this kind--simple people of small means who, +twenty years ago, would as soon have thought of leaving their homes for a +trip in the East as they would of starting off in balloons en route for +the inter-stellar spaces. + +I doubted at the time as to the amount of information and appreciation +they brought to bear on their travels, so I took occasion to draw one of +the thin, unsmiling women into conversation, asking her where they +intended stopping next. + +"At Buda-Pesth," she answered. I said in some amusement: + +"But that was Buda-Pesth we visited so carefully yesterday." + +"Oh, was it," she replied, without any visible change on her face, "I +thought we had not got there yet." Apparently it was enough for her to +be travelling; the rest was of little importance. Later in the day, when +asked if she had visited a certain old city in Germany, she told me she +had but would never go there again: "They gave us such poor coffee at the +hotel." Again later in speaking to her husband, who seemed a trifle +vague as to whether he had seen Nuremberg or not, she said: + +"Why, you remember it very well; it was there you bought those nice +overshoes!" + +All of which left me with some doubts in my mind as to the cultivating +influences of foreign travel on their minds. + +You cannot change a leopard's spots, neither can you alter the nature of +a race, and one of the strongest characteristics of the Anglo-Saxon, is +the nomadic instinct. How often one hears people say: + +"I am not going to sit at home and take care of my furniture. I want to +see something of the world before I am too old." Lately, a sprightly +maiden of uncertain years, just returned from a long trip abroad, was +asked if she intended now to settle down. + +"Settle down, indeed! I'm a butterfly and I never expect to settle +down." + +There is certainly food here for reflection. Why should we be more +inclined to wander than our neighbors? Perhaps it is in a measure due to +our nervous, restless temperament, which is itself the result of our +climate; but whatever the cause is, inability to remain long in one place +is having a most unfortunate influence on our social life. When everyone +is on the move or longing to be, it becomes difficult to form any but the +most superficial ties; strong friendships become impossible, the most +intimate family relations are loosened. + +If one were of a speculative frame of mind and chose to take as the basis +for a calculation the increase in tourists between 1855, when the ten +pioneers started for Paris, and the number "personally conducted" over +land and sea to-day, and then glance forward at what the future will be +if this ratio of increase is maintained the result would be something too +awful for words. For if ten have become a million in forty years, what +will be the total in 1955? Nothing less than entire nations given over +to sight-seeing, passing their lives and incomes in rushing aimlessly +about. + +If the facilities of communication increase as they undoubtedly will with +the demand, the prospect becomes nearer the idea of a "Walpurgis Night" +than anything else. For the earth and the sea will be covered and the +air filled with every form of whirling, flying, plunging device to get +men quickly from one place to another. + +Every human being on the globe will be flying South for the cold months +and North for the hot season. + +As personally conducted tours have been so satisfactory, agencies will be +started to lead us through all the stages of existence. Parents will +subscribe on the birth of their children to have them personally +conducted through life and everything explained as it is done at present +in the galleries abroad; food, lodging and reading matter, husbands and +wives will be provided by contract, to be taken back and changed if +unsatisfactory, as the big stores do with their goods. Delightful +prospect! Homes will become superfluous, parents and children will only +meet when their "tours" happen to cross each other. Our +great-grandchildren will float through life freed from every +responsibility and more perfectly independent than even that delightful +dreamer, Bellamy, ventured to predict. + + + + +No. 29--Husks + + +Among the Protestants driven from France by that astute and +liberal-minded sovereign Louis XIV., were a colony of weavers, who as all +the world knows, settled at Spitalfields in England, where their +descendants weave silk to this day. + +On their arrival in Great Britain, before the looms could be set up and a +market found for their industry, the exiles were reduced to the last +extremity of destitution and hunger. Looking about them for anything +that could be utilized for food, they discovered that the owners of +English slaughter-houses threw away as worthless, the tails of the cattle +they killed. Like all the poor in France, these wanderers were excellent +cooks, and knew that at home such caudal appendages were highly valued +for the tenderness and flavor of the meat. To the amazement and disgust +of the English villagers the new arrivals proceeded to collect this +"refuse" and carry it home for food. As the first principle of French +culinary art is the _pot-au-feu_, the tails were mostly converted into +soup, on which the exiles thrived and feasted. + +Their neighbors, envious at seeing the despised French indulging daily in +savory dishes, unknown to English palates, and tempted like "Jack's" +giant by the smell of "fresh meat," began to inquire into the matter, and +slowly realized how, in their ignorance, they had been throwing away +succulent and delicate food. The news of this discovery gradually +spreading through all classes, "ox-tail" became and has remained the +national English soup. + +If this veracious tale could be twisted into a metaphor, it would serve +marvellously to illustrate the position of the entire Anglo-Saxon race, +and especially that of their American descendants as regards the Latin +peoples. For foolish prodigality and reckless, ignorant extravagance, +however, we leave our English cousins far behind. + +Two American hotels come to my mind, as different in their appearance and +management as they are geographically asunder. Both are types and +illustrations of the wilful waste that has recently excited Mr. Ian +Maclaren's comment, and the woeful want (of good food) that is the +result. At one, a dreary shingle construction on a treeless island, off +our New England coast, where the ideas of the landlord and his guests +have remained as unchanged and primitive as the island itself, I found on +inquiry that all articles of food coming from the first table were thrown +into the sea; and I have myself seen chickens hardly touched, rounds of +beef, trays of vegetables, and every variety of cake and dessert tossed +to the fish. + +While we were having soups so thin and tasteless that they would have +made a French house-wife blush, the ingredients essential to an excellent +"stock" were cast aside. The boarders were paying five dollars a day and +appeared contented, the place was packed, the landlord coining money, so +it was foolish to expect any improvement. + +The other hotel, a vast caravansary in the South, where a fortune had +been lavished in providing every modern convenience and luxury, was the +"fad" of its wealthy owner. I had many talks with the manager during my +stay, and came to realize that most of the wastefulness I saw around me +was not his fault, but that of the public, to whose taste he was obliged +to cater. At dinner, after receiving your order, the waiter would +disappear for half an hour, and then bring your entire meal on one tray, +the over-cooked meats stranded in lakes of coagulated gravy, the entrees +cold and the ices warm. He had generally forgotten two or three +essentials, but to send back for them meant to wait another half-hour, as +his other clients were clamoring to be served. So you ate what was +before you in sulky disgust, and got out of the room as quickly as +possible. + +After one of these gastronomic races, being hungry, flustered, and +suffering from indigestion, I asked mine host if it had never occurred to +him to serve a _table d'hote_ dinner (in courses) as is done abroad, +where hundreds of people dine at the same moment, each dish being offered +them in turn accompanied by its accessories. + +"Of course, I have thought of it," he answered. "It would be the +greatest improvement that could be introduced into American +hotel-keeping. No one knows better than I do how disastrous the present +system is to all parties. Take as an example of the present way, the +dinner I am going to give you to-morrow, in honor of Christmas. Glance +over this _menu_. You will see that it enumerates every costly and +delicate article of food possible to procure and a long list of other +dishes, the greater part of which will not even be called for. As no +number of _chefs_ could possibly oversee the proper preparation of such a +variety of meats and sauces, all will be carelessly cooked, and as you +know by experience, poorly served. + +"People who exact useless variety," he added, "are sure in some way to be +the sufferers; in their anxiety to try everything, they will get nothing +worth eating. Yet that meal will cost me considerably more than my +guests pay for their twenty-four hours' board and lodging." + +"Why do it, you ask? Because it is the custom, and because it will be an +advertisement. These bills of fare will be sown broadcast over the +country in letters to friends and kept as souvenirs. If, instead of all +this senseless superfluity, I were allowed to give a _table d'hote_ meal +to-morrow, with the _chef_ I have, I could provide an exquisite dinner, +perfect in every detail, served at little tables as deftly and silently +as in a private house. I could also discharge half of my waiters, and +charge two dollars a day instead of five dollars, and the hotel would +become (what it has never been yet) a paying investment, so great would +he the saving." + +"Only this morning," he continued, warming to his subject, "while +standing in the dining room, I saw a young man order and then send away +half the dishes on the _menu_. A chicken was broiled for him and +rejected; a steak and an omelette fared no better. How much do you +suppose a hotel gains from a guest like that?" + +"The reason Americans put up with such poor viands in hotels is, that +home cooking in this country is so rudimentary, consisting principally of +fried dishes, and hot breads. So little is known about the proper +preparation of food that to-morrow's dinner will appear to many as the +_ne plus ultra_ of delicate living. One of the charms of a hotel for +people who live poorly at home, lies in this power to order expensive +dishes they rarely or never see on their own tables." + +"To be served with a quantity of food that he has but little desire to +eat is one of an American citizen's dearest privileges, and a right he +will most unwillingly relinquish. He may know as well as you and I do, +that what he calls for will not be worth eating; that is of secondary +importance, he has it before him, and is contented." + +"The hotel that attempted limiting the liberty of its guests to the +extent of serving them a _table d'hote_ dinner, would be emptied in a +week." + +"A crowning incongruity, as most people are delighted to dine with +friends, or at public functions, where the meal is invariably served _a +la russe_ (another name for a _table d'hote_), and on these occasions are +only too glad to have their _menu_ chosen for them. The present way, +however, is a remnant of 'old times' and the average American, with all +his love of change and novelty, is very conservative when it comes to his +table." + +What this manager did not confide to me, but what I discovered later for +myself, was that to facilitate the service, and avoid confusion in the +kitchens, it had become the custom at all the large and most of the small +hotels in this country, to carve the joints, cut up the game, and portion +out vegetables, an hour or two before meal time. The food, thus +arranged, is placed in vast steam closets, where it simmers gayly for +hours, in its own, and fifty other vapors. + +Any one who knows the rudiments of cookery, will recognize that with this +system no viand can have any particular flavor, the partridges having a +taste of their neighbor the roast beef, which in turn suggests the plum +pudding it has been "chumming" with. + +It is not alone in a hotel that we miss the good in grasping after the +better. Small housekeeping is apparently run on the same lines. + +A young Frenchman, who was working in my rooms, told me in reply to a +question regarding prices, that every kind of food was cheaper here than +abroad, but the prejudice against certain dishes was so strong in this +country that many of the best things in the markets were never called +for. Our nation is no longer in its "teens" and should cease to act like +a foolish boy who has inherited (what appears to him) a limitless +fortune; not for fear of his coming, like his prototype in the parable, +to live on "husks" for he is doing that already, but lest like the dog of +the fable, in grasping after the shadow of a banquet he miss the simple +meal that is within his reach. + +One of the reasons for this deplorable state of affairs lies in the +foolish education our girls receive. They learn so little housekeeping +at home, that when married they are obliged to begin all over again, +unless they prefer, like a majority of their friends, to let things as go +at the will and discretion of the "lady" below stairs. + +At both hotels I have referred to, the families of the men interested +considered it beneath them to know what was taking place. The "daughter" +of the New England house went semi-weekly to Boston to take violin +lessons at ten dollars each, although she had no intention of becoming a +professional, while the wife wrote poetry and ignored the hotel side of +her life entirely. + +The "better half" of the Florida establishment hired a palace in Rome and +entertained ambassadors. Hotels divided against themselves are apt to be +establishments where you pay for riotous living and are served only with +husks. + +We have many hard lessons ahead of us, and one of the hardest will be for +our nation to learn humbly from the thrifty emigrants on our shores, the +great art of utilizing the "tails" that are at this moment being so +recklessly thrown away. + +As it is, in spite of markets overflowing with every fish, vegetable, and +tempting viand, we continue to be the worst fed, most meagrely nourished +of all the wealthy nations on the face of the earth. We have a saying +(for an excellent reason unknown on the Continent) that Providence +provides us with food and the devil sends the cooks! It would be truer +to say that the poorer the food resources of a nation, the more +restricted the choice of material, the better the cooks; a small latitude +when providing for the table forcing them to a hundred clever +combinations and mysterious devices to vary the monotony of their cuisine +and tempt a palate, by custom staled. + +Our heedless people, with great variety at their disposition, are unequal +to the situation, wasting and discarding the best, and making absolutely +nothing of their advantages. + +If we were enjoying our prodigality by living on the fat of the land, +there would be less reason to reproach ourselves, for every one has a +right to live as he pleases. But as it is, our foolish prodigals are +spending their substance, while eating the husks! + + + + +No. 30--The Faubourg of St. Germain + + +There has been too much said and written in the last dozen years about +breaking down the "great wall" behind which the aristocrats of the famous +Faubourg, like the Celestials, their prototypes, have ensconced +themselves. The Chinese speak of outsiders as "barbarians." The French +ladies refer to such unfortunates as being "beyond the pale." Almost all +that has been written is arrant nonsense; that imaginary barrier exists +to-day on as firm a foundation, and is guarded by sentinels as vigilant +as when, forty years ago, Napoleon (third of the name) and his Spanish +spouse mounted to its assault. + +Their repulse was a bitter humiliation to the _parvenue_ Empress, whose +resentment took the form (along with many other curious results) of +opening the present Boulevard St. Germain, its line being intentionally +carried through the heart of that quarter, teeming with historic "Hotels" +of the old aristocracy, where beautiful constructions were mercilessly +torn down to make way for the new avenue. The cajoleries which Eugenie +first tried and the blows that followed were alike unavailing. Even her +worship of Marie Antoinette, between whom and herself she found imaginary +resemblances, failed to warm the stony hearts of the proud old ladies, to +whom it was as gall and wormwood to see a nobody crowned in the palace of +their kings. Like religious communities, persecution only drew this old +society more firmly together and made them stand by each other in their +distress. When the Bois was remodelled by Napoleon and the lake with its +winding drive laid out, the new Court drove of an afternoon along this +water front. That was enough for the old swells! They retired to the +remote "Allee of the Acacias," and solemnly took their airing away from +the bustle of the new world, incidentally setting a fashion that has held +good to this day; the lakeside being now deserted, and the "Acacias" +crowded of an afternoon, by all that Paris holds of elegant and +inelegant. + +Where the brilliant Second Empire failed, the Republic had little chance +of success. With each succeeding year the "Old Faubourg" withdrew more +and more into its shell, going so far, after the fall of Mac Mahon, as to +change its "season" to the spring, so that the balls and _fetes_ it gave +should not coincide with the "official" entertainments during the winter. + +The next people to have a "shy" at the "Old Faubourg's" Gothic +battlements were the Jews, who were victorious in a few light skirmishes +and succeeded in capturing one or two illustrious husbands for their +daughters. The wily Israelites, however, discovered that titled sons-in- +law were expensive articles and often turned out unsatisfactorily, so +they quickly desisted. The English, the most practical of societies, +have always left the Faubourg alone. It has been reserved for our +countrywomen to lay the most determined siege yet recorded to that +untaken stronghold. + +It is a characteristic of the American temperament to be unable to see a +closed door without developing an intense curiosity to know what is +behind; or to read "No Admittance to the Public" over an entrance without +immediately determining to get inside at any price. So it is easy to +understand the attraction an hermetically sealed society would have for +our fair compatriots. Year after year they have flung themselves against +its closed gateways. Repulsed, they have retired only to form again for +the attack, but are as far away to-day from planting their flag in that +citadel as when they first began. It does not matter to them what is +inside; there may be (as in this case) only mouldy old halls and a group +of people with antiquated ideas and ways. It is enough for a certain +type of woman to know that she is not wanted in an exclusive circle, to +be ready to die in the attempt to get there. This point of view reminds +one of Mrs. Snob's saying about a new arrival at a hotel: "I am sure she +must be 'somebody' for she was so rude to me when I spoke to her;" and +her answer to her daughter when the girl said (on arriving at a watering- +place) that she had noticed a very nice family "who look as if they +wanted to know us, Mamma:" + +"Then, my dear," replied Mamma Snob, "they certainly are not people we +want to meet!" + +The men in French society are willing enough to make acquaintance with +foreigners. You may see the youth of the Faubourg dancing at American +balls in Paris, or running over for occasional visits to this country. +But when it comes to taking their women-kind with them, it is a different +matter. Americans who have known well-born Frenchmen at school or +college are surprised, on meeting them later, to be asked (cordially +enough) to dine _en garcon_ at a restaurant, although their Parisian +friend is married. An Englishman's or American's first word would be on +a like occasion: + +"Come and dine with me to-night. I want to introduce you to my wife." +Such an idea would never cross a Frenchman's mind! + +One American I know is a striking example of this. He was born in Paris, +went to school and college there, and has lived in that city all his +life. His sister married a French nobleman. Yet at this moment, in +spite of his wealth, his charming American wife, and many beautiful +entertainments, he has not one warm French friend, or the _entree_ on a +footing of intimacy to a single Gallic house. + +There is no analogy between the English aristocracy and the French +nobility, except that they are both antiquated institutions; the English +is the more harmful on account of its legislative power, the French is +the more pretentious. The House of Lords is the most open club in +London, the payment of an entrance-fee in the shape of a check to a party +fund being an all-sufficient sesame. In France, one must be born in the +magic circle. The spirit of the Emigration of 1793 is not yet extinct. +The nobles live in their own world (how expressive the word is, seeming +to exclude all the rest of mankind), pining after an impossible +_restauration_, alien to the present day, holding aloof from politics for +fear of coming in touch with the masses, with whom they pride themselves +on having nothing in common. + +What leads many people astray on this subject is that there has formed +around this ancient society a circle composed of rich "outsiders," who +have married into good families; and of eccentric members of the latter, +who from a love of excitement or for interested motives have broken away +from their traditions. Newly arrived Americans are apt to mistake this +"world" for the real thing. Into this circle it is not difficult for +foreigners who are rich and anxious to see something of life to gain +admission. To be received by the ladies of this outer circle, seems to +our compatriots to be an achievement, until they learn the real standing +of their new acquaintances. + +No gayer houses, however, exist than those of the new set. At their city +or country houses, they entertain continually, and they are the people +one meets toward five o'clock, on the grounds of the Polo Club, in the +Bois, at _fetes_ given by the Island Club of Puteaux, attending the race +meetings, or dining at American houses. As far as amusement and fun go, +one might seek much further and fare worse. + +It is very, very rare that foreigners get beyond this circle. +Occasionally there is a marriage between an American girl and some +Frenchman of high rank. In these cases the girl is, as it were, +swallowed up. Her family see little of her, she rarely appears in +general society, and, little by little, she is lost to her old friends +and relations. I know of several cases of this kind where it is to be +doubted if a dozen Americans outside of the girls' connections know that +such women exist. The fall in rents and land values has made the French +aristocracy poor; it is only by the greatest economy (and it never +entered into an American mind to conceive of such economy as is practised +among them) that they succeed in holding on to their historical chateaux +or beautiful city residences; so that pride plays a large part in the +isolation in which they live. + +The fact that no titles are recognized officially by the French +government (the most they can obtain being a "courtesy" recognition) has +placed these people in a singularly false position. An American girl who +has married a Duke is a good deal astonished to find that she is legally +only plain "Madame So and So;" that when her husband does his military +service there is no trace of the high-sounding title to be found in his +official papers. Some years ago, a colonel was rebuked because he +allowed the Duc d'Alencon to be addressed as "Monseigneur" by the other +officers of his regiment. This ought to make ambitious papas reflect, +when they treat themselves to titled sons-in-law. They should at least +try and get an article recognized by the law. + +Most of what is written here is perfectly well known to resident +Americans in Paris, and has been the cause of gradually splitting that +once harmonious settlement into two perfectly distinct camps, between +which no love is lost. The members of one, clinging to their +countrymen's creed of having the best or nothing, have been contented to +live in France and know but few French people, entertaining among +themselves and marrying their daughters to Americans. The members of the +other, who have "gone in" for French society, take what they can get, +and, on the whole, lead very jolly lives. It often happens (perhaps it +is only a coincidence) that ladies who have not been very successful at +home are partial to this circle, where they easily find guests for their +entertainments and the recognition their souls long for. + +What the future of the "Great Faubourg" will be, it is hard to say. All +hope of a possible _restauration_ appears to be lost. Will the proud +necks that refused to bend to the Orleans dynasty or the two "empires" +bow themselves to the republican yoke? It would seem as if it must +terminate in this way, for everything in this world must finish. But the +end is not yet; one cannot help feeling sympathy for people who are +trying to live up to their traditions and be true to such immaterial +idols as "honor" and "family" in this discouragingly material age, when +everything goes down before the Golden Calf. Nor does one wonder that +men who can trace their ancestors back to the Crusades should hesitate to +ally themselves with the last rich _parvenu_ who has raised himself from +the gutter, or resent the ardor with which the latest importation of +American ambition tries to chum with them and push its way into their +life. + + + + +No. 31--Men's Manners + + +Nothing makes one feel so old as to wake up suddenly, as it were, and +realize that the conditions of life have changed, and that the standards +you knew and accepted in your youth have been raised or lowered. The +young men you meet have somehow become uncomfortably polite, offering you +armchairs in the club, and listening with a shade of deference to your +stories. They are of another generation; their ways are not your ways, +nor their ambitions those you had in younger days. One is tempted to +look a little closer, to analyze what the change is, in what this subtle +difference consists, which you feel between your past and their present. +You are surprised and a little angry to discover that, among other +things, young men have better manners than were general among the youths +of fifteen years ago. + +Anyone over forty can remember three epochs in men's manners. When I was +a very young man, there were still going about in society a number of +gentlemen belonging to what was reverently called the "old school," who +had evidently taken Sir Charles Grandison as their model, read Lord +Chesterfield's letters to his son with attention, and been brought up to +commence letters to their fathers, "Honored Parent," signing themselves +"Your humble servant and respectful son." There are a few such old +gentlemen still to be found in the more conservative clubs, where certain +windows are tacitly abandoned to these elegant-mannered fossils. They +are quite harmless unless you happen to find them in a reminiscent mood, +when they are apt to be a little tiresome; it takes their rusty mental +machinery so long to get working! Washington possesses a particularly +fine collection among the retired army and navy officers and +ex-officials. It is a fact well known that no one drawing a pension ever +dies. + +About 1875, a new generation with new manners began to make its +appearance. A number of its members had been educated at English +universities, and came home burning to upset old ways and teach their +elders how to live. They broke away from the old clubs and started +smaller and more exclusive circles among themselves, principally in the +country. This was a period of bad manners. True to their English model, +they considered it "good form" to be uncivil and to make no effort +towards the general entertainment when in society. Not to speak more +than a word or two during a dinner party to either of one's neighbors was +the supreme _chic_. As a revolt from the twice-told tales of their +elders they held it to be "bad form" to tell a story, no matter how fresh +and amusing it might be. An unfortunate outsider who ventured to tell +one in their club was crushed by having his tale received in dead +silence. When it was finished one of the party would "ring the bell," +and the circle order drinks at the expense of the man who had dared to +amuse them. How the professional story-teller must have shuddered--he +whose story never was ripe until it had been told a couple of hundred +times, and who would produce a certain tale at a certain course as surely +as clock-work. + +That the story-telling type was a bore, I grant. To be grabbed on +entering your club and obliged to listen to Smith's last, or to have the +conversation after dinner monopolized by Jones and his eternal "Speaking +of coffee, I remember once," etc. added an additional hardship to +existence. But the opposite pose, which became the fashion among the +reformers, was hardly less wearisome. To sit among a group of perfectly +mute men, with an occasional word dropping into the silence like a stone +in a well, was surely little better. + +A girl told me she had once sat through an entire cotillion with a youth +whose only remark during the evening had been (after absorbed +contemplation of the articles in question), "How do you like my socks?" + +On another occasion my neighbor at table said to me: + +"I think the man on my right has gone to sleep. He is sitting with his +eyes closed!" She was mistaken. He was practising his newly acquired +"repose of manner," and living up to the standard of his set. + +The model young man of that period had another offensive habit, his pose +of never seeing you, which got on the nerves of his elders to a +considerable extent. If he came into a drawing-room where you were +sitting with a lady, he would shake hands with her and begin a +conversation, ignoring your existence, although you may have been his +guest at dinner the night before, or he yours. This was also a tenet of +his creed borrowed from trans-Atlantic cousins, who, by the bye, during +the time I speak of, found America, and especially our Eastern states, a +happy hunting-ground,--all the clubs, country houses, and society +generally opening their doors to the "sesame" of English nationality. It +took our innocent youths a good ten years to discover that there was no +reciprocity in the arrangement; it was only in the next epoch (the list +of the three referred to) that our men recovered their self-respect, and +assumed towards foreigners in general the attitude of polite indifference +which is their manner to us when abroad. Nothing could have been more +provincial and narrow than the ideas of our "smart" men at that time. +They congregated in little cliques, huddling together in public, and +cracking personal old jokes; but were speechless with _mauvaise honte_ if +thrown among foreigners or into other circles of society. All this is +not to be wondered at considering the amount of their general education +and reading. One charming little custom then greatly in vogue among our +_jeunesse doree_ was to remain at a ball, after the other guests had +retired, tipsy, and then break anything that came to hand. It was so +amusing to throw china, glass, or valuable plants, out of the windows, to +strip to the waist and box or bait the tired waiters. + +I look at the boys growing up around me with sincere admiration, they are +so superior to their predecessors in breeding, in civility, in deference +to older people, and in a thousand other little ways that mark high-bred +men. The stray Englishman, of no particular standing at home no longer +finds our men eager to entertain him, to put their best "hunter" at his +disposition, to board, lodge, and feed him indefinitely, or make him +honorary member of all their clubs. It is a constant source of pleasure +to me to watch this younger generation, so plainly do I see in them the +influence of their mothers--women I knew as girls, and who were so far +ahead of their brothers and husbands in refinement and culture. To have +seen these girls marry and bring up their sons so well has been a +satisfaction and a compensation for many disillusions. Woman's influence +will always remain the strongest lever that can be brought to bear in +raising the tone of a family; it is impossible not to see about these +young men a reflection of what we found so charming in their mothers. One +despairs at times of humanity, seeing vulgarity and snobbishness riding +triumphantly upward; but where the tone of the younger generation is as +high as I have lately found it, there is still much hope for the future. + + + + +No. 32--An Ideal Hostess + + +The saying that "One-half of the world ignores how the other half lives" +received for me an additional confirmation this last week, when I had the +good fortune to meet again an old friend, now for some years retired from +the stage, where she had by her charm and beauty, as well as by her +singing, held all the Parisian world at her pretty feet. + +Our meeting was followed on her part by an invitation to take luncheon +with her the next day, "to meet a few friends, and talk over old times." +So half-past twelve (the invariable hour for the "second breakfast," in +France) the following day found me entering a shady drawing-room, where a +few people were sitting in the cool half-light that strayed across from a +canvas-covered balcony furnished with plants and low chairs. Beyond one +caught a glimpse of perhaps the gayest picture that the bright city of +Paris offers,--the sweep of the Boulevard as it turns to the Rue Royale, +the flower market, gay with a thousand colors in the summer sunshine, +while above all the color and movement, rose, cool and gray, the splendid +colonnade of the Madeleine. The rattle of carriages, the roll of the +heavy omnibuses and the shrill cries from the street below floated up, +softened into a harmonious murmur that in no way interfered with our +conversation, and is sweeter than the finest music to those who love +their Paris. + +Five or six rooms _en suite_ opening on the street, and as many more on a +large court, formed the apartment, where everything betrayed the +_artiste_ and the singer. The walls, hung with silk or tapestry, held a +collection of original drawings and paintings, a fortune in themselves; +the dozen portraits of our hostess in favorite roles were by men great in +the art world; a couple of pianos covered with well-worn music and +numberless photographs signed with names that would have made an +autograph-fiend's mouth water. + +After a gracious, cooing welcome, more whispered than spoken, I was +presented to the guests I did not know. Before this ceremony was well +over, two maids in black, with white caps, opened a door into the dining- +room and announced luncheon. As this is written on the theme that +"people know too little how their neighbors live," I give the _menu_. It +may amuse my readers and serve, perhaps, as a little object lesson to +those at home who imagine that quantity and not quality is of importance. + +Our gracious hostess had earned a fortune in her profession (and I am +told that two _chefs_ preside over her simple meals); so it was not a +spirit of economy which dictated this simplicity. At first, _hors +d'oeuvres_ were served,--all sorts of tempting little things,--very thin +slices of ham, spiced sausages, olives and caviar, and eaten--not merely +passed and refused. Then came the one hot dish of the meal. "One!" I +think I hear my reader exclaim. Yes, my friend, but that one was a +marvel in its way. Chicken _a l'espagnole_, boiled, and buried in rice +and tomatoes cooked whole--a dish to be dreamed of and remembered in +one's prayers and thanksgivings! After at least two helpings each to +this _chef-d'oeuvre_, cold larded fillet and a meat _pate_ were served +with the salad. Then a bit of cheese, a beaten cream of chocolate, +fruit, and bon-bons. For a drink we had the white wine from which +champagne is made (by a chemical process and the addition of many +injurious ingredients); in other words, a pure _brut_ champagne with just +a suggestion of sparkle at the bottom of your glass. All the party then +migrated together into the smoking-room for cigarettes, coffee, and a +tiny glass of _liqueur_. + +These details have been given at length, not only because the meal seemed +to me, while I was eating it, to be worthy of whole columns of print, but +because one of the besetting sins of our dear land is to serve a +profusion of food no one wants and which the hostess would never have +dreamed of ordering had she been alone. + +Nothing is more wearisome than to sit at table and see course after +course, good, bad, and indifferent, served, after you have eaten what you +want. And nothing is more vulgar than to serve them; for either a guest +refuses a great deal of the food and appears uncivil, or he must eat, and +regret it afterwards. If we ask people to a meal, it should be to such +as we eat, as a general thing, ourselves, and such as they would have at +home. Otherwise it becomes ostentation and vulgarity. Why should one be +expelled to eat more than usual because a friend has been nice enough to +ask one to take one's dinner with him, instead of eating it alone? It is +the being among friends that tempts, not the food; the fact at skilful +waiters have been able to serve a dozen varieties of fish, flesh, and +fowl during the time you were at table has added little to any one's +pleasure. On the contrary! Half the time one eats from pure absence of +mind, a number of most injurious mixtures and so prepares an awful to- +morrow and the foundation of many complicated diseases. + +I see Smith and Jones daily at the club, where we dine cheerfully +together on soup, a cut of the joint, a dessert, and drink a pint of +claret. But if either Mrs. Smith or Mrs. Jones asks me to dinner, we +have eight courses and half as many wines, and Smith will say quite +gravely to me, "Try this '75 'Perrier Jouet'," as if he were in the habit +of drinking it daily. It makes me smile, for he would as soon think of +ordering a bottle of that wine at the club as he would think of ordering +a flask of nectar. + +But to return to our "mutton." As we had none of us eaten too much (and +so become digesting machines), we were cheerful and sprightly. A little +music followed and an author repeated some of his poetry. I noticed that +during the hour before we broke up our hostess contrived to have a little +talk with each of her guests, which she made quite personal, appearing +for the moment as though the rest of the world did not exist for her, +than which there is no more subtle flattery, and which is the act of a +well-bred and appreciative woman. Guests cannot be treated _en masse_ +any more than food; to ask a man to your house is not enough. He should +be made to feel, if you wish him to go away with a pleasant remembrance +of the entertainment, that his presence has in some way added to it and +been a personal pleasure to his host. + +A good soul that all New York knew a few years ago, whose entertainments +were as though the street had been turned into a _salon_ for the moment, +used to go about among her guests saying, "There have been one hundred +and seventy-five people here this Thursday, ten more than last week," +with such a satisfied smile, that you felt that she had little left to +wish for, and found yourself wondering just which number you represented +in her mind. When you entered she must have murmured a numeral to +herself as she shook your hand. + +There is more than one house in New York where I have grave doubts if the +host and hostess are quite sure of my name when I dine there; after an +abstracted welcome, they rarely put themselves out to entertain their +guests. Black coats and evening dresses alternate in pleasing +perspective down the long line of their table. Their gold plate is out, +and the _chef_ has been allowed to work his own sweet will, so they give +themselves no further trouble. + +Why does not some one suggest to these amphitrions to send fifteen +dollars in prettily monogrammed envelopes to each of their friends, +requesting them to expend it on a dinner. The compliment would be quite +as personal, and then the guests might make up little parties to suit +themselves, which would be much more satisfactory than going "in" with +some one chosen at hazard from their host's visiting list, and less +fatiguing to that gentleman and his family. + + + + +No. 33--The Introducer + + +We all suffer more or less from the perennial "freshness" of certain +acquaintances--tiresome people whom a misguided Providence has endowed +with over-flowing vitality and an irrepressible love of their fellowmen, +and who, not content with looking on life as a continual "spree," insist +on making others happy in spite of themselves. Their name is legion and +their presence ubiquitous, but they rarely annoy as much as when +disguised under the mask of the "Introducer." In his clutches one is +helpless. It is impossible to escape from such philanthropic tyranny. +He, in his freshness, imagines that to present human beings to each other +is his mission in this world and moves through life making these platonic +unions, oblivious, as are other match-makers, of the misery he creates. + +If you are out for a quiet stroll, one of these genial gentlemen is sure +to come bounding up, and without notice or warning present you to his +"friend,"--the greater part of the time a man he has met only an hour +before, but whom he endows out of the warehouse of his generous +imagination with several talents and all the virtues. In order to make +the situation just one shade more uncomfortable, this kindly bore +proceeds to sing a hymn of praise concerning both of you to your faces, +adding, in order that you may both feel quite friendly and pleasant: + +"I know you two will fancy each other, you are so alike,"--a phrase +neatly calculated to nip any conversation in the bud. You detest the +unoffending stranger on the spot and would like to kill the bore. Not to +appear an absolute brute you struggle through some commonplace phrases, +discovering the while that your new acquaintance is no more anxious to +know you, than you are to meet him; that he has not the slightest idea +who you are, neither does he desire to find out. He classes you with the +bore, and his one idea, like your own, is to escape. So that the only +result of the Introducer's good-natured interference has been to make two +fellow-creatures miserable. + +A friend was telling me the other day of the martyrdom he had suffered +from this class. He spoke with much feeling, as he is the soul of +amiability, but somewhat short-sighted and afflicted with a hopelessly +bad memory for faces. For the last few years, he has been in the habit +of spending one or two of the winter months in Washington, where his +friends put him up at one club or another. Each winter on his first +appearance at one of these clubs, some kindly disposed old fogy is sure +to present him to a circle of the members, and he finds himself +indiscriminately shaking hands with Judges and Colonels. As little or no +conversation follows these introductions to fix the individuality of the +members in his mind, he unconsciously cuts two-thirds of his newly +acquired circle the next afternoon, and the following winter, after a ten- +months' absence, he innocently ignores the other third. So hopelessly +has he offended in this way, that last season, on being presented to a +club member, the latter peevishly blurted out: + +"This is the fourth time I have been introduced to Mr. Blank, but he +never remembers me," and glared coldly at him, laying it all down to my +friend's snobbishness and to the airs of a New Yorker when away from +home. If instead of being sacrificed to the introducer's mistaken zeal +my poor friend had been left quietly to himself, he would in good time +have met the people congenial to him and avoided giving offence to a +number of kindly gentlemen. + +This introducing mania takes an even more aggressive form in the hostess, +who imagines that she is lacking in hospitality if any two people in her +drawing-room are not made known to each other. No matter how interested +you may be in a chat with a friend, you will see her bearing down upon +you, bringing in tow the one human being you have carefully avoided for +years. Escape seems impossible, but as a forlorn hope you fling yourself +into conversation with your nearest neighbor, trying by your absorbed +manner to ward off the calamity. In vain! With a tap on your elbow your +smiling hostess introduces you and, having spoiled your afternoon, flits +off in search of other prey. + +The question of introductions is one on which it is impossible to lay +down any fixed rules. There must constantly occur situations where one's +acts must depend upon a kindly consideration for other people's feelings, +which after all, is only another name for tact. Nothing so plainly shows +the breeding of a man or woman as skill in solving problems of this kind +without giving offence. + +Foreigners, with their greater knowledge of the world, rarely fall into +the error of indiscriminate introducing, appreciating what a presentation +means and what obligations it entails. The English fall into exactly the +contrary error from ours, and carry it to absurd lengths. Starting with +the assumption that everybody knows everybody, and being aware of the +general dread of meeting "detrimentals," they avoid the difficulty by +making no introductions. This may work well among themselves, but it is +trying to a stranger whom they have been good enough to ask to their +tables, to sit out the meal between two people who ignore his presence +and converse across him; for an Englishman will expire sooner than speak +to a person to whom he has not been introduced. + +The French, with the marvellous tact that has for centuries made them the +law-givers on all subjects of etiquette and breeding, have another way of +avoiding useless introductions. They assume that two people meeting in a +drawing-room belong to the same world and so chat pleasantly with those +around them. On leaving the _salon_ the acquaintance is supposed to end, +and a gentleman who should at another time or place bow or speak to the +lady who had offered him a cup of tea and talked pleasantly to him over +it at a friend's reception, would commit a gross breach of etiquette. + +I was once present at a large dinner given in Cologne to the American +Geographical Society. No sooner was I seated than my two neighbors +turned towards me mentioning their names and waiting for me to do the +same. After that the conversation flowed on as among friends. This +custom struck me as exceedingly well-bred and calculated to make a +foreigner feel at his ease. + +Among other curious types, there are people so constituted that they are +unhappy if a single person can be found in the room to whom they have not +been introduced. It does not matter who the stranger may be or what +chance there is of finding him congenial. They must be presented; +nothing else will content them. If you are chatting with a friend you +feel a pull at your sleeve, and in an audible aside, they ask for an +introduction. The aspirant will then bring up and present the members of +his family who happen to be near. After that he seems to be at ease, and +having absolutely nothing to say will soon drift off. Our public men +suffer terribly from promiscuous introductions; it is a part of a +political career; a good memory for names and faces and a cordial manner +under fire have often gone a long way in floating a statesman on to +success. + +Demand, we are told, creates supply. During a short stay in a Florida +hotel last winter, I noticed a curious little man who looked like a cross +between a waiter and a musician. As he spoke to me several times and +seemed very officious, I asked who he was. The answer was so grotesque +that I could not believe my ears. I was told that he held the position +of official "introducer," or master of ceremonies, and that the guests +under his guidance became known to each other, danced, rode, and married +to their own and doubtless to his satisfaction. The further west one +goes the more pronounced this mania becomes. Everybody is introduced to +everybody on all imaginable occasions. If a man asks you to take a +drink, he presents you to the bar-tender. If he takes you for a drive, +the cab-driver is introduced. "Boots" makes you acquainted with the +chambermaid, and the hotel proprietor unites you in the bonds of +friendship with the clerk at the desk. Intercourse with one's fellows +becomes one long debauch of introduction. In this country where every +liberty is respected, it is a curious fact that we should be denied the +most important of all rights, that of choosing our acquaintances. + + + + +No. 34--A Question and an Answer + + + DEAR IDLER: + + I have been reading your articles in _The Evening Post_. They are + really most amusing! You do know such a lot about people and things, + that I am tempted to write and ask you a question on a subject that is + puzzling me. What is it that is necessary to succeed--socially? + There! It is out! Please do not laugh at me. Such funny people get + on and such clever, agreeable ones fail, that I am all at sea. Now do + be nice and answer me, and you will have a very grateful + + ADMIRER. + +The above note, in a rather juvenile feminine hand, and breathing a faint +perfume of _violette de Parme_, was part of the morning's mail that I +found lying on my desk a few days ago, in delightful contrast to the +bills and advertisements which formed the bulk of my correspondence. It +would suppose a stoicism greater than I possess, not to have felt a +thrill of satisfaction in its perusal. There was, then, some one who +read with pleasure what I wrote, and who had been moved to consult me on +a question (evidently to her) of importance. I instantly decided to do +my best for the edification of my fair correspondent (for no doubt +entered my head that she was both young and fair), the more readily +because that very question had frequently presented itself to my own mind +on observing the very capricious choice of Dame "Fashion" in the +distribution of her favors. + +That there are people who succeed brilliantly and move from success to +success, amid an applauding crowd of friends and admirers, while others, +apparently their superiors in every way, are distanced in the race, is an +undeniable fact. You have but to glance around the circle of your +acquaintances and relations to be convinced of this anomaly. To a +reflecting mind the question immediately presents itself, Why is this? +General society is certainly cultivated enough to appreciate intelligence +and superior endowments. How then does it happen that the social +favorites are so often lacking in the qualities which at a first glance +would seem indispensable to success? + +Before going any further let us stop a moment, and look at the subject +from another side, for it is more serious than appears to be on the +surface. To be loved by those around us, to stand well in the world, is +certainly the most legitimate as well as the most common of ambitions, as +well as the incentive to most of the industry and perseverance in life. +Aside from science, which is sometimes followed for itself alone, and +virtue, which we are told looks for no other reward, the hope which +inspires a great deal of the persistent efforts we see, is generally that +of raising one's self and those one loves by one's efforts into a sphere +higher than where cruel fate had placed them; that they, too, may take +their place in the sunshine and enjoy the good things of life. This +ambition is often purely disinterested; a life of hardest toil is +cheerfully borne, with the hope (for sole consolation) that dear ones +will profit later by all the work, and live in a circle the patient +toiler never dreams of entering. Surely he is a stern moralist who would +deny this satisfaction to the breadwinner of a family. + +There are doubtless many higher motives in life, more elevated goals +toward which struggling humanity should strive. If you examine the +average mind, however, you will be pretty sure to find that success is +the touchstone by which we judge our fellows and what, in our hearts, we +admire the most. That is not to be wondered at, either, for we have done +all we can to implant it there. From a child's first opening thought, it +is impressed upon him that the great object of existence is to succeed. +Did a parent ever tell a child to try and stand last in his class? And +yet humility is a virtue we admire in the abstract. Are any of us +willing to step aside and see our inferiors pass us in the race? That is +too much to ask of poor humanity. Were other and higher standards to be +accepted, the structure of civilization as it exists to-day would crumble +away and the great machine run down. + +In returning to my correspondent and her perfectly legitimate desire to +know the road to success, we must realize that to a large part of the +world social success is the only kind they understand. The great +inventors and benefactors of mankind live too far away on a plane by +themselves to be the object of jealousy to any but a very small circle; +on the other hand, in these days of equality, especially in this country +where caste has never existed, the social world seems to hold out +alluring and tangible gifts to him who can enter its enchanted portals. +Even politics, to judge by the actions of some of our legislators, of +late, would seem to be only a stepping-stone to its door! + +"But my question," I hear my fair interlocutor saying. "You are not +answering it!" + +All in good time, my dear. I am just about to do so. Did you ever hear +of Darwin and his theory of "selection?" It would be a slight to your +intelligence not to take it for granted that you had. Well, my +observations in the world lead me to believe that we follow there +unconsciously, the same rules that guide the wild beasts in the forest. +Certain individuals are endowed by nature with temperaments which make +them take naturally to a social life and shine there. In it they find +their natural element. They develop freely just where others shrivel up +and disappear. There is continually going on unseen a "natural +selection," the discarding of unfit material, the assimilation of new and +congenial elements from outside, with the logical result of a survival of +the fittest. Aside from this, you will find in "the world," as anywhere +else, that the person who succeeds is generally he who has been willing +to give the most of his strength and mind to that one object, and has not +allowed the flowers on the hillside to distract him from his path, +remembering also that genius is often but the "capacity for taking +infinite pains." + +There are people so constituted that they cheerfully give the efforts of +a lifetime to the attainment of a brilliant social position. No fatigue +is too great, and no snubs too bitter to be willingly undergone in +pursuit of the cherished object. You will never find such an individual, +for instance, wandering in the flowery byways that lead to art or +letters, for that would waste his time. If his family are too hard to +raise, he will abandon the attempt and rise without them, for he cannot +help himself. He is but an atom working as blindly upward as the plant +that pushes its mysterious way towards the sun. Brains are not +necessary. Good looks are but a trump the more in the "hand." Manners +may help, but are not essential. The object can be and is attained daily +without all three. Wealth is but the oil that makes the machinery run +more smoothly. The all-important factor is the desire to succeed, so +strong that it makes any price seem cheap, and that can pay itself by a +step gained, for mortification and weariness and heart-burnings. + +There, my dear, is the secret of success! I stop because I feel myself +becoming bitter, and that is a frame of mind to be carefully avoided, +because it interferes with the digestion and upsets one's gentle calm! I +have tried to answer your question. The answer resolves itself into +these two things; that it is necessary to be born with qualities which +you may not possess, and calls for sacrifices you would doubtless be +unwilling to make. It remains with you to decide if the little game is +worth the candle. The delightful common sense I feel quite sure you +possess reassures me as to your answer. + +Take gayly such good things as may float your way, and profit by them +while they last. Wander off into all the cross-roads that tempt you. +Stop often to lend a helping hand to a less fortunate traveller. Rest in +the heat of the day, as your spirit prompts you. Sit down before the +sunset and revel in its beauty and you will find your voyage through life +much more satisfactory to look back to and full of far sweeter memories +than if by sacrificing any of these pleasures you had attained the +greatest of "positions." + + + + +No. 35--Living on your Friends + + +Thackeray devoted a chapter in "Vanity Fair" to the problem "How to Live +Well on Nothing a Year." It was neither a very new nor a very ingenious +expedient that "Becky" resorted to when she discounted her husband's +position and connection to fleece the tradespeople and cheat an old +family servant out of a year's rent. The author might more justly have +used his clever phrase in describing "Major Pendennis's" agreeable +existence. We have made great progress in this, as in almost every other +mode of living, in the latter half of the Victorian era; intelligent +individuals of either sex, who know the ropes, can now as easily lead the +existence of a multi-millionaire (with as much satisfaction to themselves +and their friends) as though the bank account, with all its attendant +worries, stood in their own names. This subject is so vast, its +ramifications so far-reaching and complicated, that one hesitates before +launching into an analysis of it. It will be better simply to give a few +interesting examples, and a general rule or two, for the enlightenment +and guidance of ingenious souls. + +Human nature changes little; all that our educational and social training +has accomplished is a smoothing of the surface. One of the most striking +proofs of this is, that here in our primitive country, as soon as +accumulation of capital allowed certain families to live in great luxury, +they returned to the ways of older aristocracies, and, with other wants, +felt the necessity of a court about them, ladies and gentlemen in +waiting, pages and jesters. Nature abhors a vacuum, so a class of people +immediately felt an irresistible impulse to rush in and fill the void. +Our aristocrats were not even obliged to send abroad to fill these +vacancies, as they were for their footmen and butlers; the native article +was quite ready and willing and, considering the little practice it could +have had, proved wonderfully adapted to the work. + +When the mania for building immense country houses and yachts (the owning +of opera boxes goes a little further back) first attacked this country, +the builders imagined that, once completed, it would be the easiest, as +well as the most delightful task to fill them with the pick of their +friends, that they could get all the talented and agreeable people they +wanted by simply making a sign. To their astonishment, they discovered +that what appeared so simple was a difficult, as well as a thankless +labor. I remember asking a lady who had owned a "proscenium" at the old +Academy, why she had decided not to take a box in the (then) new opera- +house. + +"Because, having passed thirty years of my life inviting people to sit in +my box, I intend now to rest." It is very much the same thing with +yachts. A couple who had determined to go around the world, in their +lately finished boat, were dumbfounded to find their invitations were not +eagerly accepted. After exhausting the small list of people they really +wanted, they began with others indifferent to them, and even then filled +out their number with difficulty. A hostess who counts on a series of +house parties through the autumn months, must begin early in the summer +if she is to have the guests she desires. + +It is just here that the "professional," if I may be allowed to use such +an expression, comes to the front. He is always available. It is +indifferent to him if he starts on a tour around the world or for a +winter spree to Montreal. He is always amusing, good-humored, and can be +counted on at the last moment to fill any vacant place, without being the +least offended at the tardy invitation, for he belongs to the class who +have discovered "how to live well on nothing a year." Luxury is as the +breath of his nostrils, but his means allow of little beyond necessities. +The temptation must be great when everything that he appreciates most +(and cannot afford) is urged upon him. We should not pose as too stern +moralists, and throw stones at him; for there may enter more "best French +plate" into the composition of our own houses than we imagine. + +It is here our epoch shows its improvement over earlier and cruder days. +At present no toad-eating is connected with the acceptance of +hospitality, or, if occasionally a small "batrachian" is offered, it is +so well disguised by an accomplished _chef_, and served on such exquisite +old Dresden, that it slips down with very little effort. Even this +rarely occurs, unless the guest has allowed himself to become the inmate +of a residence or yacht. Then he takes his chance with other members of +the household, and if the host or hostess happens to have a bad temper as +a set-off to their good table, it is apt to fare ill with our friend. + +So far, I have spoken of this class in the masculine, which is an error, +as the art is successfully practised by the weaker sex, with this shade +of difference. As an unmarried woman is in less general demand, she is +apt to attach herself to one dear friend, always sure to be a lady in +possession of fine country and city houses and other appurtenances of +wealth, often of inferior social standing; so that there is give and +take, the guest rendering real service to an ambitious hostess. The +feminine aspirant need not be handsome. On the contrary, an agreeable +plainness is much more acceptable, serving as a foil. But she must be +excellent in all games, from golf to piquet, and willing to play as often +and as long as required. She must also cheerfully go in to dinner with +the blue ribbon bore of the evening, only asked on account of his pretty +wife (by the bye, why is it that Beauty is so often flanked by the +Beast?), and sit between him and the "second prize" bore. These two +worthies would have been the portion of the hostess fifteen years ago; +she would have considered it her duty to absorb them and prevent her +other guests suffering. _Mais nous avons change tout cela_. The lady of +the house now thinks first of amusing herself, and arranges to sit +between two favorites. + +Society has become much simpler, and especially less expensive, for +unmarried men than it used to be. Even if a hostess asks a favor in +return for weeks of hospitality, the sacrifice she requires of a man is +rarely greater than a cotillion with an unattractive debutante whom she +is trying to launch; or the sitting through a particularly dull opera in +order to see her to the carriage, her lord and master having slipped off +early to his club and a quiet game of pool. Many people who read these +lines are old enough to remember that prehistoric period when unmarried +girls went to the theatre and parties, alone with the men they knew. This +custom still prevails in our irrepressible West. It was an arrangement +by which all the expenses fell on the man--theatre tickets, carriages if +it rained, and often a bit of supper after. If a youth asked a girl to +dance the cotillion, he was expected to send a bouquet, sure to cost +between twenty and twenty-five dollars. What a blessed change for the +impecunious swell when all this went out of fashion! New York is his +paradise now; in other parts of the world something is still expected of +him. In France it takes the form of a handsome bag of bon-bons on New +Year's Day, if he has accepted hospitality during the past year. While +here he need do absolutely nothing (unless he wishes to), the occasional +leaving of a card having been suppressed of late by our _jeunesse doree_, +five minutes of their society in an opera box being estimated (by them) +as ample return for a dinner or a week in a country house. + +The truth of it is, there are so few men who "go out" (it being +practically impossible for any one working at a serious profession to sit +up night after night, even if he desired), and at the same time so many +women insist on entertaining to amuse themselves or better their +position, that the men who go about get spoiled and almost come to +consider the obligation conferred, when they dine out. There is no more +amusing sight than poor paterfamilias sitting in the club between six and +seven P.M. pretending to read the evening paper, but really with his eve +on the door; he has been sent down by his wife to "get a man," as she is +one short for her dinner this evening. He must be one who will fit in +well with the other guests; hence papa's anxious look, and the reason the +editorial gets so little of his attention! Watch him as young +"professional" lounges in. There is just his man--if he only happens to +be disengaged! You will see "Pater" cross the room and shake hands, +then, after a few minutes' whispered conversation, he will walk down to +his coupe with such a relieved look on his face. Young "professional," +who is in faultless evening dress, will ring for a cocktail and take up +the discarded evening paper to pass the time till eight twenty-five. + +Eight twenty-five, advisedly, for he will be the last to arrive, knowing, +clever dog, how much _eclat_ it gives one to have a room full of people +asking each other, "Whom are we waiting for?" when the door opens, and he +is announced. He will stay a moment after the other guests have gone and +receive the most cordial pressures of the hand from a grateful hostess +(if not spoken words of thanks) in return for eating an exquisitely +cooked dinner, seated between two agreeable women, drinking +irreproachable wine, smoking a cigar, and washing the whole down with a +glass of 1830 brandy, or some priceless historic madeira. + +There is probably a moral to be extracted from all this. But frankly my +ethics are so mixed that I fail to see where the blame lies, and which is +the less worthy individual, the ostentatious axe-grinding host or the +interested guest. One thing, however, I see clearly, viz., that life is +very agreeable to him who starts in with few prejudices, good manners, a +large amount of well-concealed "cheek" and the happy faculty of taking +things as they come. + + + + +No. 36--American Society in Italy + + +The phrase at the head of this chapter and other sentences, such as +"American Society in Paris," or London, are constantly on the lips of +people who should know better. In reality these societies do not exist. +Does my reader pause, wondering if he can believe his eyes? He has +doubtless heard all his life of these delightful circles, and believes in +them. He may even have dined, _en passant_, at the "palace" of some +resident compatriot in Rome or Florence, under the impression that he was +within its mystic limits. Illusion! An effect of mirage, making that +which appears quite tangible and solid when viewed from a distance +dissolve into thin air as one approaches; like the mirage, cheating the +weary traveller with a vision of what he most longs for. + +Forty, even fifty years ago, there lived in Rome a group of very +agreeable people; Story and the two Greenoughs and Crawford, the sculptor +(father of the brilliant novelist of to-day); Charlotte Cushman (who +divided her time between Rome and Newport), and her friend Miss Stebbins, +the sculptress, to whose hands we owe the bronze fountain on the Mall in +our Park; Rogers, then working at the bronze doors of our capitol, and +many other cultivated and agreeable people. Hawthorne passed a couple of +winters among them, and the tone of that society is reflected in his +"Marble Faun." He took Story as a model for his "Kenyon," and was the +first to note the exotic grace of an American girl in that strange +setting. They formed as transcendental and unworldly a group as ever +gathered about a "tea" table. Great things were expected of them and +their influence, but they disappointed the world, and, with the exception +of Hawthorne, are being fast forgotten. + +Nothing could be simpler than life in the papal capital in those pleasant +days. Money was rare, but living as delightfully inexpensive. It was +about that time, if I do not mistake, that a list was published in New +York of the citizens worth one hundred thousand dollars; and it was not a +long one! The Roman colony took "tea" informally with each other, and +"received" on stated evenings in their studios (when mulled claret and +cakes were the only refreshment offered; very bad they were, too), and +migrated in the summer to the mountains near Rome or to Sorrento. In the +winter months their circle was enlarged by a contingent from home. Among +wealthy New Yorkers, it was the fashion in the early fifties to pass a +winter in Rome, when, together with his other dissipations, paterfamilias +would sit to one of the American sculptors for his bust, which accounts +for the horrors one now runs across in dark corners of country +houses,--ghostly heads in "chin whiskers" and Roman draperies. + +The son of one of these pioneers, more rich than cultivated, noticed the +other day, while visiting a friend of mine, an exquisite +eighteenth-century bust of Madame de Pompadour, the pride of his +hostess's drawing-room. "Ah!" said Midas, "are busts the fashion again? +I have one of my father, done in Rome in 1850. I will bring it down and +put it in my parlor." + +The travellers consulted the residents in their purchases of copies of +the old masters, for there were fashions in these luxuries as in +everything else. There was a run at that time on the "Madonna in the +Chair;" and "Beatrice Cenci" was long prime favorite. Thousands of the +latter leering and winking over her everlasting shoulder, were solemnly +sent home each year. No one ever dreamed of buying an original painting! +The tourists also developed a taste for large marble statues, "Nydia, the +Blind Girl of Pompeii" (people read Bulwer, Byron and the Bible then) +being in such demand that I knew one block in lower Fifth Avenue that +possessed seven blind Nydias, all life-size, in white marble,--a form of +decoration about as well adapted to those scanty front parlors as a steam +engine or a carriage and pair would have been. I fear Bulwer's heroine +is at a discount now, and often wonder as I see those old residences +turning into shops, what has become of the seven white elephants and all +their brothers and sisters that our innocent parents brought so proudly +back from Italy! I have succeeded in locating two statues evidently +imported at that time. They grace the back steps of a rather shabby +villa in the country,--Demosthenes and Cicero, larger than life, dreary, +funereal memorials of the follies of our fathers. + +The simple days we have been speaking of did not, however, outlast the +circle that inaugurated them. About 1867 a few rich New Yorkers began +"trying to know the Italians" and go about with them. One family, "up to +snuff" in more senses than one, married their daughter to the scion of a +princely house, and immediately a large number of her compatriots were +bitten with the madness of going into Italian society. + +In 1870, Rome became the capital of united Italy. The court removed +there. The "improvements" began. Whole quarters were remodelled, and +the dear old Rome of other days, the Rome of Hawthorne and Madame de +Stael, was swept away. With this new state of things came a number of +Americo-Italian marriages more or less successful; and anything like an +American society, properly so-called, disappeared. To-day families of +our compatriots passing the winter months in Rome are either tourists who +live in hotels, and see sights, or go (as far as they can) into Italian +society. + +The Queen of Italy, who speaks excellent English, developed a _penchant_ +for Americans, and has attached several who married Italians to her +person in different court capacities; indeed, the old "Black" society, +who have remained true to the Pope, when they wish to ridicule the new +"White" or royal circle, call it the "American court!" The feeling is +bitter still between the "Blacks" and "Whites," and an American girl who +marries into one of these circles must make up her mind to see nothing of +friends or relatives in the opposition ranks. It is said that an +amalgamation is being brought about, but it is slow work; a generation +will have to die out before much real mingling of the two courts will +take place. As both these circles are poor, very little entertainment +goes on. One sees a little life in the diplomatic world, and the King +and Queen give a ball or two during the winter, but since the repeated +defeats of the Italian arms in Africa, and the heavy financial +difficulties (things these sovereigns take very seriously to heart), +there has not been much "go" in the court entertainments. + +The young set hope great things of the new Princess of Naples, the bride +of the heir-apparent, a lady who is credited with being full of fun and +life; it is fondly imagined that she will set the ball rolling again. By +the bye, her first lady-in-waiting, the young Duchess del Monte of +Naples, was an American girl, and a very pretty one, too. She enjoyed +for some time the enviable distinction of being the youngest and +handsomest duchess in Europe, until Miss Vanderbilt married Marlborough +and took the record from her. The Prince and Princess of Naples live at +their Neapolitan capital, and will not do much to help things in Rome. +Besides which he is very delicate and passes for not being any too fond +of the world. + +What makes things worse is that the great nobles are mostly "land poor," +and even the richer ones burned their fingers in the craze for +speculation that turned all Rome upside down in the years following 1870 +and Italian unity, when they naively imagined their new capital was to +become again after seventeen centuries the metropolis of the world. Whole +quarters of new houses were run up for a population that failed to +appear; these houses now stand empty and are fast going to ruin. So that +little in the way of entertaining is to be expected from the bankrupts. +They are a genial race, these Italian nobles, and welcome rich strangers +and marry them with much enthusiasm--just a shade too much, perhaps--the +girl counting for so little and her _dot_ for so much in the matrimonial +scale. It is only necessary to keep open house to have the pick of the +younger ones as your guests. They will come to entertainments at +American houses and bring all their relations, and dance, and dine, and +flirt with great good humor and persistency; but if there is not a good +solid fortune in the background, in the best of securities, the prettiest +American smiles never tempt them beyond flirtation; the season over, they +disappear up into their mountain villas to wait for a new importation +from the States. + +In Rome, as well as in the other Italian cities, there are, of course, +still to be found Americans in some numbers (where on the Continent will +you not find them?), living quietly for study or economy. But they are +not numerous or united enough to form a society; and are apt to be +involved in bitter strife among themselves. + +Why, you ask, should Americans quarrel among themselves? + +Some years ago I was passing the summer months on the Rhine at a tiny +German watering-place, principally frequented by English, who were all +living together in great peace and harmony, until one fatal day, when an +Earl appeared. He was a poor Irish Earl, very simple and unoffending, +but he brought war into that town, heart-burnings, envy, and backbiting. +The English colony at once divided itself into two camps, those who knew +the Earl and those who did not. And peace fled from our little society. +You will find in every foreign capital among the resident Americans, just +such a state of affairs as convulsed that German spa. The native +"swells" have come to be the apple of discord that divides our good +people among themselves. Those who have been successful in knowing the +foreigners avoid their compatriots and live with their new friends, while +the other group who, from laziness, disinclination, or principle (?) have +remained true to their American circle, cannot resist calling the others +snobs, and laughing (a bit enviously, perhaps) at their upward struggles. + +It is the same in Florence. The little there was left of an American +society went to pieces on that rock. Our parents forty years ago seem to +me to have been much more self-respecting and sensible. They knew +perfectly well that there was nothing in common between themselves and +the Italian nobility, and that those good people were not going to put +themselves out to make the acquaintance of a lot of strangers, mostly of +another religion, unless it was to be materially to their advantage. So +they left them quietly alone. I do not pretend to judge any one's +motives, but confess I cannot help regarding with suspicion a foreigner +who leaves his own circle to mingle with strangers. It resembles too +closely the amiabilities of the wolf for the lamb, or the sudden +politeness of a school-boy to a little girl who has received a box of +candies. + + + + +No. 37--The Newport of the Past + + +Few of the "carriage ladies and gentlemen" who disport themselves in +Newport during the summer months, yachting and dancing through the short +season, then flitting away to fresh fields and pastures new, realize that +their daintily shod feet have been treading historic ground, or care to +cast a thought back to the past. Oddly enough, to the majority of people +the past is a volume rarely opened. Not that it bores them to read it, +but because they, like children, want some one to turn over its yellow +leaves and point out the pictures to them. Few of the human motes that +dance in the rays of the afternoon sun as they slant across the little +Park, think of the fable which asserts that a sea-worn band of +adventurous men, centuries before the Cabots or the Genoese discoverer +thought of crossing the Atlantic, had pushed bravely out over untried +seas and landed on this rocky coast. Yet one apparent evidence of their +stay tempts our thoughts back to the times when it is said to have been +built as a bower for a king's daughter. Longfellow, in the swinging +verse of his "Skeleton in Armor," breathing of the sea and the Norseman's +fatal love, has thrown such a glamour of poetry around the tower, that +one would fain believe all he relates. The hardy Norsemen, if they ever +came here, succumbed in their struggle with the native tribes, or, +discouraged by death and hardships, sailed away, leaving the clouds of +oblivion to close again darkly around this continent, and the fog of +discussion to circle around the "Old Mill." + +The little settlement of another race, speaking another tongue, that +centuries later sprang up in the shadow of the tower, quickly grew into a +busy and prosperous city, which, like New York, its rival, was captured +and held by the English. To walk now through some of its quaint, narrow +streets is to step back into Revolutionary days. Hardly a house has +changed since the time when the red coats of the British officers +brightened the prim perspectives, and turned loyal young heads as they +passed. + +At the corner of Spring and Pelham Streets, still stands the residence of +General Prescott, who was carried away prisoner by his opponents, they +having rowed down in whale-boats from Providence for the attack. +Rochambeau, our French ally, lodged lower down in Mary Street. In the +tower of Trinity, one can read the epitaph of the unfortunate Chevalier +de Ternay, commander of the sea forces, whose body lies near by. Many +years later his relative, the Duc de Noailles, when Minister to this +country, had this simple tablet repaired and made a visit to the spot. + +A long period of prosperity followed the Revolution, during which Newport +grew and flourished. Our pious and God-fearing "forbears," having +secured personal and religious liberty, proceeded to inaugurate a most +successful and remunerative trade in rum and slaves. It was a triangular +transaction and yielded a three-fold profit. The simple population of +that day, numbering less than ten thousand souls, possessed twenty +distilleries; finding it a physical impossibility to drink _all_ the rum, +they conceived the happy thought of sending the surplus across to the +coast of Africa, where it appears to have been much appreciated by the +native chiefs, who eagerly exchanged the pick of their loyal subjects for +that liquid. These poor brutes were taken to the West Indies and +exchanged for sugar, laden with which, the vessels returned to Newport. + +Having introduced the dusky chieftains to the charms of delirium tremens +and their subjects to life-long slavery, one can almost see these pious +deacons proceeding to church to offer up thanks for the return of their +successful vessels. Alas! even "the best laid schemes of mice and men" +come to an end. The War of 1812, the opening of the Erie Canal and +sundry railways struck a blow at Newport commerce, from which it never +recovered. The city sank into oblivion, and for over thirty years not a +house was built there. + +It was not until near 1840 that the Middletons and Izzards and other +wealthy and aristocratic Southern families were tempted to Newport by the +climate and the facilities it offered for bathing, shooting and boating. +A boarding-house or two sufficed for the modest wants of the new-comers, +first among which stood the Aquidneck, presided over by kind Mrs. Murray. +It was not until some years later, when New York and Boston families +began to appreciate the place, that the first hotels were built,--the +Atlantic on the square facing the old mill, the Bellevue and Fillmore on +Catherine Street, and finally the original Ocean House, destroyed by fire +in 1845 and rebuilt as we see it to-day. The croakers of the epoch +considered it much too far out of town to be successful, for at its door +the open fields began, a gate there separating the town from the country +across which a straggling, half-made road, closed by innumerable gates, +led along the cliffs and out across what is now the Ocean Drive. The +principal roads at that time led inland; any one wishing to drive seaward +had to descend every two or three minutes to open a gate. The youth of +the day discovered a source of income in opening and closing these for +pennies. + +Fashion had decreed that the correct hour for dancing was 11 A.M., and +_matinees dansantes_ were regularly given at the hotels, our grandmothers +appearing in _decollete_ muslin frocks adorned with broad sashes, and +disporting themselves gayly until the dinner hour. Low-neck dresses were +the rule, not only for these informal entertainments, but as every-day +wear for young girls,--an old lady only the other day telling me she had +never worn a "high-body" until after her marriage. Two o'clock found all +the beauties and beaux dining. How incredulously they would have laughed +if any one had prophesied that their grandchildren would prefer eight +forty-five as a dinner hour! + +The opening of Bellevue Avenue marked another epoch in the history of +Newport. About that time Governor Lawrence bought the whole of Ochre +Point farm for fourteen thousand dollars, and Mr. de Rham built on the +newly opened road the first "cottage," which stands to-day modestly back +from the avenue opposite Perry Street. If houses have souls, as +Hawthorne averred, and can remember and compare, what curious thoughts +must pass through the oaken brain of this simple construction as it sees +its marble neighbors rearing their vast facades among trees. The trees, +too, are an innovation, for when the de Rham cottage was built and Mrs. +Cleveland opened her new house at the extreme end of Rough Point (the +second summer residence in the place) it is doubtful if a single tree +broke the rocky monotony of the landscape from the Ocean House to +Bateman's Point. + +Governor Lawrence, having sold one acre of his Ochre Point farm to Mr. +Pendleton for the price he himself had paid for the whole, proceeded to +build a stone wall between the two properties down to the water's edge. +The population of Newport had been accustomed to take their Sunday +airings and moonlight rambles along "the cliffs," and viewed this +obstruction of their favorite walk with dismay. So strong was their +feeling that when the wall was completed the young men of the town +repaired there in the night and tore it down. It was rebuilt, the mortar +being mixed with broken glass. This infuriated the people to such an +extent that the whole populace, in broad daylight, accompanied by the +summer visitors, destroyed the wall and threw the materials into the sea. +Lawrence, bent on maintaining what he considered his rights, called the +law to his aid. It was then discovered that an immemorial riverain right +gave the fishermen and the public generally, access to the shore for +fishing, and also to collect seaweed,--a right of way that no one could +obstruct. + +This was the beginning of the long struggle between the cliff-dwellers +and the townspeople; each new property-owner, disgusted at the idea that +all the world can stroll at will across his well-kept lawns, has in turn +tried his hand at suppressing the now famous "walk." Not only do the +public claim the liberty to walk there, but also the right to cross any +property to get to the shore. At this moment the city fathers and the +committee of the new buildings at Bailey's Beach are wrangling as gayly +as in Governor Lawrence's day over a bit of wall lately constructed +across the end of Bellevue Avenue. A new expedient has been hit upon by +some of the would-be exclusive owners of the cliffs; they have lowered +the "walk" out of sight, thus insuring their own privacy and in no way +interfering with the rights of the public. + +Among the gentlemen who settled in Newport about Governor Lawrence's time +was Lord Baltimore (Mr. Calvert, he preferred to call himself), who +remained there until his death. He was shy of referring to his English +peerage, but would willingly talk of his descent through his mother from +Peter Paul Rubens, from whom had come down to him a chateau in Holland +and several splendid paintings. The latter hung in the parlor of the +modest little dwelling, where I was taken to see them and their owner +many years ago. My introducer on this occasion was herself a lady of no +ordinary birth, being the daughter of Stuart, our greatest portrait +painter. I have passed many quiet hours in the quaint studio (the same +her father had used), hearing her prattle--as she loved to do if she +found a sympathetic listener--of her father, of Washington and his +pompous ways, and the many celebrities who had in turn posed before +Stuart's easel. She had been her father's companion and aid, present at +the sittings, preparing his brushes and colors, and painting in +backgrounds and accessories; and would willingly show his palette and +explain his methods and theories of color, his predilection for +scrumbling shadows thinly in black and then painting boldly in with body +color. Her lessons had not profited much to the gentle, kindly old lady, +for the productions of her own brush were far from resembling her great +parent's work. She, however, painted cheerfully on to life's close, +surrounded by her many friends, foremost among whom was Charlotte +Cushman, who also passed the last years of her life in Newport. Miss +Stuart was over eighty when I last saw her, still full of spirit and +vigor, beginning the portrait of a famous beauty of that day, since the +wife and mother of dukes. + +Miss Stuart's death seems to close one of the chapters in the history of +this city, and to break the last connecting link with its past. The +world moves so quickly that the simple days and modest amusements of our +fathers and grandfathers have already receded into misty remoteness. We +look at their portraits and wonder vaguely at their graceless costumes. +We know they trod these same streets, and laughed and flirted and married +as we are doing to-day, but they seem to us strangely far away, like +inhabitants of another sphere! + +It is humiliating to think how soon we, too, shall have become the +ancestors of a new and careless generation; fresh faces will replace our +faded ones, young voices will laugh as they look at our portraits hanging +in dark corners, wondering who we were, and (criticising the apparel we +think so artistic and appropriate) how we could ever have made such guys +of ourselves. + + + + +No. 38--A Conquest of Europe + + +The most important event in modern history is the discovery of Europe by +the Americans. Before it, the peoples of the Old World lived happy and +contented in their own countries, practising the patriarchal virtues +handed down to them from generations of forebears, ignoring alike the +vices and benefits of modern civilization, as understood on this side of +the Atlantic. The simple-minded Europeans remained at home, satisfied +with the rank in life where they had been born, and innocent of the ways +of the new world. + +These peoples were, on the whole, not so much to be pitied, for they had +many pleasing crafts and arts unknown to the invaders, which had enabled +them to decorate their capitals with taste in a rude way; nothing really +great like the lofty buildings and elevated railway structures, executed +in American cities, but interesting as showing what an ingenious race, +deprived of the secrets of modern science, could accomplish. + +The more aesthetic of the newcomers even affected to admire the +antiquated places of worship and residences they visited abroad, pointing +out to their compatriots that in many cases marble, bronze and other old- +fashioned materials had been so cleverly treated as to look almost like +the superior cast-iron employed at home, and that some of the old +paintings, preserved with veneration in the museums, had nearly the +brilliancy of modern chromos. As their authors had, however, neglected +to use a process lending itself to rapid reproduction, they were of no +practical value. In other ways, the continental races, when discovered, +were sadly behind the times. In business, they ignored the use of +"corners," that backbone of American trade, and their ideas of +advertising were but little in advance of those known among the ancient +Greeks. + +The discovery of Europe by the Americans was made about 1850, at which +date the first bands of adventurers crossed the seas in search of +amusement. The reports these pioneers brought back of the _naivete_, +politeness, and gullibility of the natives, and the cheapness of +existence in their cities, caused a general exodus from the western to +the eastern hemisphere. Most of the Americans who had used up their +credit at home and those whose incomes were insufficient for their wants, +immediately migrated to these happy hunting grounds, where life was +inexpensive and credit unlimited. + +The first arrivals enjoyed for some twenty years unique opportunities. +They were able to live in splendor for a pittance that would barely have +kept them in necessaries on their own side of the Atlantic, and to pick +up valuable specimens of native handiwork for nominal sums. In those +happy days, to belong to the invading race was a sufficient passport to +the good graces of the Europeans, who asked no other guarantees before +trading with the newcomers, but flocked around them, offering their +services and their primitive manufactures, convinced that Americans were +all wealthy. + +Alas! History ever repeats itself. As Mexicans and Peruvians, after +receiving their conquerors with confidence and enthusiasm, came to rue +the day they had opened their arms to strangers, so the European peoples, +before a quarter of a century was over, realized that the hordes from +across the sea who were over-running their lands, raising prices, +crowding the native students out of the schools, and finally attempting +to force an entrance into society, had little to recommend them or +justify their presence except money. Even in this some of the intruders +were unsatisfactory. Those who had been received into the "bosom" of +hotels often forgot to settle before departing. The continental women +who had provided the wives of discoverers with the raiment of the country +(a luxury greatly affected by those ladies) found, to their disgust, that +their new customers were often unable or unwilling to offer any +remuneration. + +In consequence of these and many other disillusions, Americans began to +be called the "Destroyers," especially when it became known that nothing +was too heavy or too bulky to be carried away by the invaders, who tore +the insides from the native houses, the paintings from the walls, the +statues from the temples, and transported this booty across the seas, +much in the same way as the Romans had plundered Greece. Elaborate +furniture seemed especially to attract the new arrivals, who acquired +vast quantities of it. + +Here, however, the wily natives (who were beginning to appreciate their +own belongings) had revenge. Immense quantities of worthless imitations +were secretly manufactured and sold to the travellers at fabulous prices. +The same artifice was used with paintings, said to be by great masters, +and with imitations of old stuffs and bric-a-brac, which the ignorant and +arrogant invaders pretended to appreciate and collect. + +Previous to our arrival there had been an invasion of the Continent by +the English about the year 1812. One of their historians, called +Thackeray, gives an amusing account of this in the opening chapters of +his "Shabby Genteel Story." That event, however, was unimportant in +comparison with the great American movement, although both were +characterized by the same total disregard of the feelings and prejudices +of indigenous populations. The English then walked about the continental +churches during divine service, gazing at the pictures and consulting +their guide-books as unconcernedly as our compatriots do to-day. They +also crowded into theatres and concert halls, and afterwards wrote to the +newspapers complaining of the bad atmosphere of those primitive +establishments and of the long _entr'actes_. + +As long as the invaders confined themselves to such trifles, the patient +foreigners submitted to their overbearing and uncouth ways because of the +supposed benefit to trade. The natives even went so far as to build +hotels for the accommodation and delight of the invaders, abandoning +whole quarters to their guests. + +There was, however, a point at which complacency stopped. The older +civilizations had formed among themselves restricted and exclusive +societies, to which access was almost impossible to strangers. These +sanctuaries tempted the immigrants, who offered their fairest virgins and +much treasure for the privilege of admission. The indigenous +aristocrats, who were mostly poor, yielded to these offers and a few +Americans succeeded in forcing an entrance. But the old nobility soon +became frightened at the number and vulgarity of the invaders, and +withdrew severely into their shells, refusing to accept any further +bribes either in the form of females or finance. + +From this moment dates the humiliation of the discoverers. All their +booty and plunder seemed worthless in comparison with the Elysian +delights they imagined were concealed behind the closed doors of those +holy places, visions of which tortured the women from the western +hemisphere and prevented their taking any pleasure in other victories. To +be received into those inner circles became their chief ambition. With +this end in view they dressed themselves in expensive costumes, took the +trouble to learn the "lingo" spoken in the country, went to the extremity +of copying the ways of the native women by painting their faces, and in +one or two cases imitated the laxity of their morals. + +In spite of these concessions, our women were not received with +enthusiasm. On the contrary, the very name of an American became a +byword and an abomination in every continental city. This prejudice +against us abroad is hardly to be wondered at on reflecting what we have +done to acquire it. The agents chosen by our government to treat +diplomatically with the conquered nations, owe their selection to +political motives rather than to their tact or fitness. In the large +majority of cases men are sent over who know little either of the habits +or languages prevailing in Europe. + +The worst elements always follow in the wake of discovery. Our +settlements abroad gradually became the abode of the compromised, the +divorced, the socially and financially bankrupt. + +Within the last decade we have found a way to revenge the slights put +upon us, especially those offered to Americans in the capital of Gaul. +Having for the moment no playwrights of our own, the men who concoct +dramas, comedies, and burlesques for our stage find, instead of wearying +themselves in trying to produce original matter, that it is much simpler +to adapt from French writers. This has been carried to such a length +that entire French plays are now produced in New York signed by American +names. + +The great French playwrights can protect themselves by taking out +American copyright, but if one of them omits this formality, the +"conquerors" immediately seize upon his work and translate it, omitting +intentionally all mention of the real author on their programmes. This +season a play was produced of which the first act was taken from Guy de +Maupassant, the second and third "adapted" from Sardou, with episodes +introduced from other authors to brighten the mixture. The piece thus +patched together is signed by a well-known Anglo-Saxon name, and accepted +by our moral public, although the original of the first act was stopped +by the Parisian police as too immoral for that gay capital. + +Of what use would it be to "discover" a new continent unless the +explorers were to reap some such benefits? Let us take every advantage +that our proud position gives us, plundering the foreign authors, making +penal settlements of their capitals, and ignoring their foolish customs +and prejudices when we travel among them! In this way shall we +effectually impress on the inferior races across the Atlantic the +greatness of the American nation. + + + + +No. 39--A Race of Slaves + + +It is all very well for us to have invaded Europe, and awakened that +somnolent continent to the lights and delights of American ways; to have +beautified the cities of the old world with graceful trolleys and +illuminated the catacombs at Rome with electricity. Every true American +must thrill with satisfaction at these achievements, and the knowledge +that he belongs to a dominating race, before which the waning +civilization of Europe must fade away and disappear. + +To have discovered Europe and to rule as conquerors abroad is well, but +it is not enough, if we are led in chains at home. It is recorded of a +certain ambitious captain whose "Commentaries" made our school-days a +burden, that "he preferred to be the first in a village rather than +second at Rome." Oddly enough, _we_ are contented to be slaves in our +villages while we are conquerors in Rome. Can it be that the struggles +of our ancestors for freedom were fought in vain? Did they throw off the +yoke of kings, cross the Atlantic, found a new form of government on a +new continent, break with traditions, and sign a declaration of +independence, only that we should succumb, a century later, yielding the +fruits of their hard-fought battles with craven supineness into the hands +of corporations and municipalities; humbly bowing necks that refuse to +bend before anointed sovereigns, to the will of steamboat subordinates, +the insolence of be-diamonded hotel-clerks, and the captious conductor? + +Last week my train from Washington arrived in Jersey City on time. We +scurried (like good Americans) to the ferry-boat, hot and tired and +anxious to get to our destination; a hope deferred, however, for our boat +was kept waiting forty long minutes, because, forsooth, another train +from somewhere in the South was behind time. Expostulations were in +vain. Being only the paying public, we had no rights that those +autocrats, the officials, were bound to respect. The argument that if +they knew the southern train to be so much behind, the ferry-boat would +have plenty of time to take us across and return, was of no avail, so, +like a cargo of "moo-cows" (as the children say), we submitted meekly. In +order to make the time pass more pleasantly for the two hundred people +gathered on the boat, a dusky potentate judged the moment appropriate to +scrub the cabin floors. So, aided by a couple of subordinates, he +proceeded to deluge the entire place in floods of water, obliging us to +sit with our feet tucked up under us, splashing the ladies' skirts and +our wraps and belongings. + +Such treatment of the public would have raised a riot anywhere but in +this land of freedom. Do you suppose any one murmured? Not at all. The +well-trained public had the air of being in church. My neighbors +appeared astonished at my impatience, and informed me that they were +often detained in that way, as the company was short of boats, but they +hoped to have a new one in a year or two. This detail did not prevent +that corporation advertising our train to arrive in New York at three- +thirteen, instead of which we landed at four o'clock. If a similar +breach of contract had happened in England, a dozen letters would have +appeared in the "Times," and the grievance been well aired. + +Another infliction to which all who travel in America are subjected is +the brushing atrocity. Twenty minutes before a train arrives at its +destination, the despot who has taken no notice of any one up to this +moment, except to snub them, becomes suspiciously attentive and insists +on brushing everybody. The dirt one traveller has been accumulating is +sent in clouds into the faces of his neighbors. When he is polished off +and has paid his "quarter" of tribute, the next man gets up, and the dirt +is then brushed back on to number one, with number two's collection +added. + +Labiche begins one of his plays with two servants at work in a salon. +"Dusting," says one of them, "is the art of sending the dirt from the +chair on the right over to the sofa on the left." I always think of that +remark when I see the process performed in a parlor car, for when it is +over we are all exactly where we began. If a man should shampoo his +hair, or have his boots cleaned in a salon, he would be ejected as a +boor; yet the idea apparently never enters the heads of those who soil +and choke their fellow-passengers that the brushing might be done in the +vestibule. + +On the subject of fresh air and heat we are also in the hands of +officials, dozens of passengers being made to suffer for the caprices of +one of their number, or the taste of some captious invalid. In other +lands the rights of minorities are often ignored. With us it is the +contrary. One sniffling school-girl who prefers a temperature of 80 +degrees can force a car full of people to swelter in an atmosphere that +is death to them, because she refuses either to put on her wraps or to +have a window opened. + +Street railways are torture-chambers where we slaves are made to suffer +in another way. You must begin to reel and plunge towards the door at +least two blocks before your destination, so as to leap to the ground +when the car slows up; otherwise the conductor will be offended with you, +and carry you several squares too far, or with a jocose "Step lively," +will grasp your elbow and shoot you out. Any one who should sit quietly +in his place until the vehicle had come to a full stop, would be regarded +by the slave-driver and his cargo as a _poseur_ who was assuming airs. + +The idea that cars and boats exist for the convenience of the public was +exploded long ago. We are made, dozens of times a day, to feel that this +is no longer the case. It is, on the contrary, brought vividly home to +us that such conveyances are money making machines in the possession of +powerful corporations (to whom we, in our debasement, have handed over +the freedom of our streets and rivers), and are run in the interest and +at the discretion of their owners. + +It is not only before the great and the powerful that we bow in +submission. The shop-girl is another tyrant who has planted her foot +firmly on the neck of the nation. She respects neither sex nor age. +Ensconced behind the bulwark of her counter, she scorns to notice humble +aspirants until they have performed a preliminary penance; a time she +fills up in cheerful conversation addressed to other young tyrants, only +deciding to notice customers when she sees their last grain of patience +is exhausted. She is often of a merry mood, and if anything about your +appearance or manner strikes her critical sense as amusing, will laugh +gayly with her companions at your expense. + +A French gentleman who speaks our language correctly but with some +accent, told me that he found it impossible to get served in our stores, +the shop-girls bursting with laughter before he could make his wants +known. + +Not long ago I was at the Compagnie Lyonnaise in Paris with a stout +American lady, who insisted on tipping her chair forward on its front +legs as she selected some laces. Suddenly the chair flew from under her, +and she sat violently on the polished floor in an attitude so supremely +comic that the rest of her party were inwardly convulsed. Not a muscle +moved in the faces of the well-trained clerks. The proprietor assisted +her to rise as gravely as if he were bowing us to our carriage. + +In restaurants American citizens are treated even worse than in the +shops. You will see cowed customers who are anxious to get away to their +business or pleasure sitting mutely patient, until a waiter happens to +remember their orders. I do not know a single establishment in this city +where the waiters take any notice of their customers' arrival, or where +the proprietor comes, toward the end of the meal, to inquire if the +dishes have been cooked to their taste. The interest so general on the +Continent or in England is replaced here by the same air of being +disturbed from more important occupations, that characterizes the shop- +girl and elevator boy. + +Numbers of our people live apparently in awe of their servants and the +opinion of the tradespeople. One middle-aged lady whom I occasionally +take to the theatre, insists when we arrive at her door on my +accompanying her to the elevator, in order that the youth who presides +therein may see that she has an escort, the opinion of this subordinate +apparently being of supreme importance to her. One of our "gilded +youths" recently told me of a thrilling adventure in which he had +figured. At the moment he was passing under an awning on his way to a +reception, a gust of wind sent his hat gambolling down the block. "Think +what a situation," he exclaimed. "There stood a group of my friends' +footmen watching me. But I was equal to the situation and entered the +house as if nothing had happened!" Sir Walter Raleigh sacrificed a cloak +to please a queen. This youth abandoned a new hat, fearing the laughter +of a half-dozen servants. + +One of the reasons why we have become so weak in the presence of our paid +masters is that nowhere is the individual allowed to protest. The other +night a friend who was with me at a theatre considered the acting +inferior, and expressed his opinion by hissing. He was promptly ejected +by a policeman. The man next me was, on the contrary, so pleased with +the piece that he encored every song. I had paid to see the piece once, +and rebelled at being obliged to see it twice to suit my neighbor. On +referring the matter to the box-office, the caliph in charge informed me +that the slaves he allowed to enter his establishment (like those who in +other days formed the court of Louis XIV.) were permitted to praise, but +were suppressed if they murmured dissent. In his _Memoires_, Dumas, +_pere_, tells of a "first night" when three thousand people applauded a +play of his and one spectator hissed. "He was the only one I respected," +said Dumas, "for the piece was bad, and that criticism spurred me on to +improve it." + +How can we hope for any improvement in the standard of our +entertainments, the manners of our servants or the ways of corporations +when no one complains? We are too much in a hurry to follow up a +grievance and have it righted. "It doesn't pay," "I haven't got the +time," are phrases with which all such subjects are dismissed. We will +sit in over-heated cars, eat vilely cooked food, put up with insolence +from subordinates, because it is too much trouble to assert our rights. +Is the spirit that prompted the first shots on Lexington Common becoming +extinct? Have the floods of emigration so diluted our Anglo-Saxon blood +that we no longer care to fight for liberty? Will no patriot arise and +lead a revolt against our tyrants? + +I am prepared to follow such a leader, and have already marked my prey. +First, I will slay a certain miscreant who sits at the receipt of customs +in the box-office of an up-town theatre. For years I have tried to +propitiate that satrap with modest politeness and feeble little jokes. He +has never been softened by either, but continues to "chuck" the worst +places out to me (no matter how early I arrive, the best have always been +given to the speculators), and to frown down my attempts at +self-assertion. + +When I have seen this enemy at my feet, I shall start down town (stopping +on the way to brain the teller at my bank, who is perennially paring his +nails, and refuses to see me until that operation is performed), to the +office of a night-boat line, where the clerk has so often forced me, with +hundreds of other weary victims, to stand in line like convicts, while he +chats with a "lady friend," his back turned to us and his leg comfortably +thrown over the arm of his chair. Then I will take my blood-stained +way--but, no! It is better not to put my victims on their guard, but to +abide my time in silence! Courage, fellow-slaves, our day will come! + + + + +Chapter 40--Introspection {276} + + +The close of a year must bring even to the careless and the least +inclined toward self-inspection, an hour of thoughtfulness, a desire to +glance back across the past, and set one's mental house in order, before +starting out on another stage of the journey for that none too distant +bourne toward which we all are moving. + +Our minds are like solitary dwellers in a vast residence, whom habit has +accustomed to live in a few only of the countless chambers around them. +We have collected from other parts of our lives mental furniture and bric- +a-brac that time and association have endeared to us, have installed +these meagre belongings convenient to our hand, and contrived an entrance +giving facile access to our living-rooms, avoiding the effort of a long +detour through the echoing corridors and disused salons behind. No +acquaintances, and but few friends, penetrate into the private chambers +of our thoughts. We set aside a common room for the reception of +visitors, making it as cheerful as circumstances will allow and take care +that the conversation therein rarely turns on any subject more personal +than the view from the windows or the prophecies of the barometer. + +In the old-fashioned brick palace at Kensington, a little suite of rooms +is carefully guarded from the public gaze, swept, garnished and tended as +though the occupants of long ago were hourly expected to return. The +early years of England's aged sovereign were passed in these simple +apartments and by her orders they have been kept unchanged, the furniture +and decorations remaining to-day as when she inhabited them. In one +corner, is assembled a group of dolls, dressed in the quaint finery of +1825. A set of miniature cooking utensils stands near by. A child's +scrap-books and color-boxes lie on the tables. In one sunny chamber +stands the little white-draped bed where the heiress to the greatest +crown on earth dreamed her childish dreams, and from which she was +hastily aroused one June morning to be saluted as Queen. So homelike and +livable an air pervades the place, that one almost expects to see the +lonely little girl of seventy years ago playing about the unpretending +chambers. + +Affection for the past and a reverence for the memory of the dead have +caused the royal wife and mother to preserve with the same care souvenirs +of her passage in other royal residences. The apartments that sheltered +the first happy months of her wedded life, the rooms where she knew the +joys and anxieties of maternity, have become for her consecrated +sanctuaries, where the widowed, broken old lady comes on certain +anniversaries to evoke the unforgotten past, to meditate and to pray. + +Who, as the year is drawing to its close, does not open in memory some +such sacred portal, and sit down in the familiar rooms to live over again +the old hopes and fears, thrilling anew with the joys and temptations of +other days? Yet, each year these pilgrimages into the past must become +more and more lonely journeys; the friends whom we can take by the hand +and lead back to our old homes become fewer with each decade. It would +be a useless sacrilege to force some listless acquaintance to accompany +us. He would not hear the voices that call to us, or see the loved faces +that people the silent passages, and would wonder what attraction we +could find in the stuffy, old-fashioned quarters. + +Many people have such a dislike for any mental privacy that they pass +their lives in public, or surrounded only by sporting trophies and games. +Some enjoy living in their pantries, composing for themselves succulent +dishes, and interested in the doings of the servants, their companions. +Others have turned their salons into nurseries, or feel a predilection +for the stable and the dog-kennels. Such people soon weary of their +surroundings, and move constantly, destroying, when they leave old +quarters, all the objects they had collected. + +The men and women who have thus curtailed their belongings are, however, +quite contented with themselves. No doubts ever harass them as to the +commodity or appropriateness of their lodgements and look with pity and +contempt on friends who remain faithful to old habitations. The drawback +to a migratory existence, however, is the fact that, as a French saying +has put it, _Ceux qui se refusent les pensees serieuses tombent dans les +idees noires_. These people are surprised to find as the years go by +that the futile amusements to which they have devoted themselves do not +fill to their satisfaction all the hours of a lifetime. Having provided +no books nor learned to practise any art, the time hangs heavily on their +hands. They dare not look forward into the future, so blank and +cheerless does it appear. The past is even more distasteful to them. So, +to fill the void in their hearts, they hurry out into the crowd as a +refuge from their own thoughts. + +Happy those who care to revisit old abodes, childhood's remote wing, and +the moonlit porches where they knew the rapture of a first-love whisper. +Who can enter the chapel where their dead lie, and feel no blush of self- +reproach, nor burning consciousness of broken faith nor wasted +opportunities? The new year will bring to them as near an approach to +perfect happiness as can be attained in life's journey. The fortunate +mortals are rare who can, without a heartache or regret, pass through +their disused and abandoned dwellings; who dare to open every door and +enter all the silent rooms; who do not hurry shudderingly by some obscure +corners, and return with a sigh of relief to the cheerful sunlight and +murmurs of the present. + +Sleepless midnight hours come inevitably to each of us, when the creaking +gates of subterranean passages far down in our consciousness open of +themselves, and ghostly inhabitants steal out of awful vaults and force +us to look again into their faces and touch their unhealed wounds. + +An old lady whose cheerfulness under a hundred griefs and tribulations +was a marvel and an example, once told a man who had come to her for +counsel in a moment of bitter trouble, that she had derived comfort when +difficulties loomed big around her by writing down all her cares and +worries, making a list of the subjects that harassed her, and had always +found that, when reduced to material written words, the dimensions of her +troubles were astonishingly diminished. She recommended her procedure to +the troubled youth, and prophesied that his anxieties would dwindle away +in the clear atmosphere of pen and paper. + +Introspection, the deliberate unlatching of closed wickets, has the same +effect of stealing away the bitterness from thoughts that, if left in the +gloom of semi-oblivion, will grow until they overshadow a whole life. It +is better to follow the example of England's pure Queen, visiting on +certain anniversaries our secret places and holding communion with the +past, for it is by such scrutiny only + + _That men may rise on stepping-stones_ + _Of their dead selves to higher things_. + +Those who have courage to perform thoroughly this task will come out from +the silent chambers purified and chastened, more lenient to the faults +and shortcomings of others, and better fitted to take up cheerfully the +burdens of a new year. + + + + +Footnotes: + + +{276} December thirty-first, 1888. + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WORLDLY WAYS AND BYWAYS*** + + +******* This file should be named 379.txt or 379.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/3/7/379 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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