WorldlyWays&Byways

BYEliot 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 compositionof which was suggested by you. 

Gratitude is said to be "the hope of favors to come;" these lines arewritten 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, sincefallen into disuse, entitled the Pele Mele, contrived doubtless by somedistracted Master of Ceremonies to quell the endless jealousies andquarrels for precedence between courtiers and diplomatists of contendingpretensions. Under this rule no rank was recognized, each person beingallowed at banquet, fete, or other public ceremony only such place as hehad been ingenious or fortunate enough to obtain. 

Any one wishing to form an idea of the confusion that ensued, of theintrigues and expedients resorted to, not only in procuring prominentplaces, but also in ensuring the integrity of the Pele Mele, shouldglance over the amusing memoirs of M. De Segur. 

The aspiring nobles and ambassadors, harassed by this constantpreoccupation, had little time or inclination left for any seriouspursuit, since, to take a moment's repose or an hour's breathing spacewas to risk falling behind in the endless and aimless race. Strange asit may appear, the knowledge that they owed place and preferment more tochance or intrigue than to any personal merit or inherited right, insteadof lessening the value of the prizes for which all were striving, seemedonly to enhance them in the eyes of the competitors. 

Success was the unique standard by which they gauged their fellows. Thosewho succeeded revelled in the adulation of their friends, but when anyone 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 perpetualPele Mele, where such advantages only are conceded as we have beensufficiently enterprising to obtain, and are strong or clever enough tokeep--a constant competition, a daily steeplechase, favorable to daringspirits and personal initiative but with the defect of keeping frailhumanity ever on the qui vive. 

Philosophers tell us, that we should seek happiness only in the calm ofour own minds, not allowing external conditions or the opinions of othersto influence our ways. This lofty detachment from environment isachieved by very few. Indeed, the philosophers themselves (who may besaid to have invented the art of "posing") were generally as vain aspeacocks, profoundly pre-occupied with the verdict of theircontemporaries and their position as regards posterity. 

Man is born gregarious and remains all his life a herding animal. As onekeen observer has written, "So great is man's horror of being alone thathe will seek the society of those he neither likes nor respects soonerthan be left to his own. " The laws and conventions that govern men'sintercourse have, therefore, formed a tempting subject for the writers ofall ages. Some have labored hoping to reform their generation, othershave written to offer solutions for life's many problems. 

Beaumarchais, whose penetrating wit left few subjects untouched, makeshis Figaro put the subject aside with "Je me presse de rire de tout, depeur d'etre oblige d'en pleurer. "

The author of this little volume pretends to settle no disputes, aims atinaugurating no reforms. He has lightly touched on passing topics andjotted down, "to point a moral or adorn a tale, " some of the more obviousfoibles and inconsistencies of our American ways. If a stray bit ofphilosophy has here and there slipped in between the lines, it is mostlyof the laughing "school, " and used more in banter than in blame. 

This much abused "world" is a fairly agreeable place if you do not takeit seriously. Meet it with a friendly face and it will smile gayly backat you, but do not ask of it what it cannot give, or attribute to itsverdicts 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 perfectedrace, the last word, as it were, of civilization; the flower of theirkind, crowning centuries of growing refinement and cultivation. Otherwomen may unite a thousand brilliant qualities, and attractiveattributes, may be beautiful as Astarte or witty as Madame de Montespan, those endowed with the power of charm, have in all ages and under everysky, held undisputed rule over the hearts of their generation. 

When we look at the portraits of the enchantresses whom history tells ushave ruled the world by their charm, and swayed the destinies of empiresat their fancy, we are astonished to find that they have rarely beenbeautiful. From Cleopatra or Mary of Scotland down to Lola Montez, thetell-tale coin or canvas reveals the same marvellous fact. We wonder howthese women attained such influence over the men of their day, theirhusbands or lovers. We would do better to look around us, or inward, andobserve what is passing in our own hearts. 

Pause, reader mine, a moment and reflect. Who has held the first placein your thoughts, filled your soul, and influenced your life? Was shethe most beautiful of your acquaintances, the radiant vision that dazzledyour boyish eyes? Has she not rather been some gentle, quiet woman whomyou hardly noticed the first time your paths crossed, but who graduallygrew to be a part of your life--to whom you instinctively turned forconsolation in moments of discouragement, for counsel in yourdifficulties, and whose welcome was the bright moment in your day, lookedforward to through long hours of toil and worry?

In the hurly-burly of life we lose sight of so many things our fathersand mothers clung to, and have drifted so far away from their gentlecustoms and simple, home-loving habits, that one wonders what impressionour society would make on a woman of a century ago, could she by somespell be dropped into the swing of modern days. The good soul would beapt 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 asummer resort. 

That we should have come to think it natural and proper for a young wifeand 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 startagain on a bicycle or for a round of calls, an occupation that will leaveher just the half-hour necessary to slip into a dinner gown, and then forher to pass the evening in dancing or at the card-table, shows, when onetakes 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 tenyears have fallen away from their elder sisters. They have been carriedalong by a love of sport, and by the set of fashion's tide, not stoppingto ask themselves whither they are floating. They do not realize all theimportance of their acts nor the true meaning of their metamorphosis. 

The dear creatures should be content, for they have at last escaped fromthe bondage of ages, have broken their chains, and vaulted over theirprison walls. "Lords and masters" have gradually become very humble andobedient servants, and the "love, honour, and obey" of the marriageservice might now more logically be spoken by the man; on the lips of thewomen of to-day it is but a graceful "_facon de parler_, " and holds onlythose who choose to be bound. 

It is not my intention to rail against the short-comings of the day. Thatungrateful task I leave to sterner moralists, and hopeful souls whonaively imagine they can stem the current of an epoch with the barrier oftheir eloquence, or sweep back an ocean of innovations by their logic. Ishould like, however, to ask my sisters one question: Are they quite surethat women gain by these changes? Do they imagine, these "sporty" youngfemales in short-cut skirts and mannish shirts and ties, that it isseductive to a lover, or a husband to see his idol in a violentperspiration, her draggled hair blowing across a sunburned face, pantingup a long hill in front of him on a bicycle, frantic at having lost herrace? 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 withpoor imitations of themselves, to share their homes and be the mothers oftheir children? She is throwing away the substance for the shadow!

The moment women step out from the sanctuary of their homes, the glamourthat girlhood or maternity has thrown around them cast aside, that momentwill they cease to rule mankind. Women may agitate until they haveobtained political recognition, but will awake from their foolish dreamof power, realizing too late what they have sacrificed to obtain it, thatthe price has been very heavy, and the fruit of their struggles bitter ontheir 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 withsoftened heart and tender thoughts to fireside scenes of evening readingsand twilight talks at a mother's knee, realizing that the best in theirnatures owes its growth to these influences. 

I sometimes look about me and wonder what the word "mother" will meanlater, to modern little boys. It will evoke, I fear, a confusedremembrance of some centaur-like being, half woman, half wheel, or as itdid to neglected little Rawdon Crawley, the vision of a radiant creaturein gauze and jewels, driving away to endless _fetes_--_fetes_ followed bylong mornings, when he was told not to make any noise, or play tooloudly, "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 hasknown and perhaps loved her, feel the same sensation of empty futilitywhen her name is mentioned?

The woman who proposes a game of cards to a youth who comes to pass anhour in her society, can hardly expect him to carry away a particularlytender 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 thebetter of him at some sport or pastime, cannot reasonably hope to beconnected in his thoughts with ideas more tender or more elevated than"odds" or "handicaps, " with an undercurrent of pique if his unsexedcompanion has "downed" him successfully. 

What man, unless he be singularly dissolute or unfortunate, but turns hissteps, when he can, towards some dainty parlor where he is sure offinding a smiling, soft-voiced woman, whose welcome he knows will soothehis irritated nerves and restore the even balance of his temper, whosecharm will work its subtle way into his troubled spirit? The wife heloves, or the friend he admires and respects, will do more for him in onesuch quiet hour when two minds commune, coming closer to the real man, and moving him to braver efforts, and nobler aims, than all the beautiesand "sporty" acquaintances of a lifetime. No matter what a man'seducation or taste is, none are insensible to such an atmosphere or tothe grace and witchery a woman can lend to the simplest surroundings. Sheneed not be beautiful or brilliant to hold him in lifelong allegiance, ifshe but possess this magnetism. 

Madame Recamier was a beautiful, but not a brilliant woman, yet she heldmen her slaves for years. To know her was to fall under her charm, andto feel it once was to remain her adorer for life. She will go down tohistory as the type of a fascinating woman. Being asked once by anacquaintance what spell she worked on mankind that enabled her to holdthem for ever at her feet, she laughingly answered:

"I have always found two words sufficient. When a visitor comes into mysalon, 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 somesprightly 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 bytelling you what it is; that is beyond my power--but by negatives, theonly way in which subtle subjects can be approached. 

A woman of charm is never flustered and never _distraite_. She talkslittle, and rarely of herself, remembering that bores are persons whoinsist on talking about themselves. She does not break the thread of aconversation by irrelevant questions or confabulate in an undertone withthe servants. No one of her guests receives more of her attention thananother and none are neglected. She offers to each one who speaks thehomage of her entire attention. She never makes an effort to bebrilliant or entertain with her wit. She is far too clever for that. Neither does she volunteer information nor converse about her troubles orher 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 thatphrase, 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, asdoes the fact of human nature being always, discouragingly, the same inspite of varied surroundings. This sounds like a paradox, but is anexceedingly simple statement easily proved. 

That the great mass of Americans, drawn as they are from such variedsources, should take any interest in the comings and goings or socialdoings of a small set of wealthy and fashionable people, is certainly anunexpected development. That to read of the amusements and home life ofa clique of people with whom they have little in common, whose wholeeducation and point of view are different from their own, and whom theyhave rarely seen and never expect to meet, should afford the averagecitizen any amusement seems little short of impossible. 

One accepts as a natural sequence that abroad (where an hereditarynobility have ruled for centuries, and accustomed the people to look upto them as the visible embodiment of all that is splendid andunattainable in life) such interest should exist. That the home-comingof an English or French nobleman to his estates should excite theenthusiasm of hundreds more or less dependent upon him for theiramusement or more material advantages; that his marriage to anheiress--meaning to them the re-opening of a long-closed _chateau_ andthe beginning of a period of prosperity for the district--should excitehis neighbors is not to be wondered at. 

It is well known that whole regions have been made prosperous by theresidence of a court, witness the wealth and trade brought into Scotlandby the Queen's preference for "the Land of Cakes, " and the discontent andpoverty in Ireland from absenteeism and persistent avoidance of thatcountry by the court. But in this land, where every reason forinteresting one class in another seems lacking, that thousands of well-to-do people (half the time not born in this hemisphere), should delightedlydevour columns of incorrect information about New York dances and Lenoxhouse-parties, winter cruises, or Newport coaching parades, strikes theobserver as the "unexpected" in its purest form. 

That this interest exists is absolutely certain. During a trip in theWest, some seasons ago, I was dumbfounded to find that the members of acertain New York set were familiarly spoken of by their first names, andwas assailed with all sorts of eager questions when it was discoveredthat I knew them. A certain young lady, at that time a belle in NewYork, was currently called _Sally_, and a well-known sportsman _Fred_, bythousands of people who had never seen either of them. It seemsimpossible, does it not? Let us look a little closer into the reason ofthis interest, and we shall find how simple is the apparent paradox. 

Perhaps in no country, in all the world, do the immense middle classeslead such uninteresting lives, and have such limited resources at theirdisposal for amusement or the passing of leisure hours. 

Abroad the military bands play constantly in the public parks; themuseums and palaces are always open wherein to pass rainy Sundayafternoons; every village has its religious _fetes_ and local fair, attended with dancing and games. All these mental relaxations arelacking in our newer civilization; life is stripped of everything that isnot distinctly practical; the dull round of weekly toil is only broken bythe duller idleness of an American Sunday. Naturally, these people longfor something outside of themselves and their narrow sphere. 

Suddenly there arises a class whose wealth permits them to break throughthe iron circle of work and boredom, who do picturesque and delightfulthings, which appeal directly to the imagination; they build a summerresidence complete, in six weeks, with furniture and bric-a-brac, on thetop 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 theNile in dahabeeyah, or pass the "month of flowers" in far Japan. 

It is but human nature to delight in reading of these things. Here thegreat mass of the people find (and eagerly seize on), the element ofromance lacking in their lives, infinitely more enthralling than thedoings of any novel's heroine. It is real! It is taking place!and--still deeper reason--in every ambitious American heart lingers thesecret hope that with luck and good management they too may do those verythings, or at least that their children will enjoy the fortunes they havegained, in just those ways. The gloom of the monotonous present isbrightened, the patient toiler returns to his desk with somethingdefinite before him--an objective point--towards which he can struggle;he knows that this is no impossible dream. Dozens have succeeded andprove to him what energy and enterprise can accomplish. 

Do not laugh at this suggestion; it is far truer than you imagine. Manya weary woman has turned from such reading to her narrow duties, feelingthat life is not all work, and with renewed hope in the possibilities ofthe future. 

Doubtless a certain amount of purely idle curiosity is mingled with theother feelings. I remember quite well showing our city sights to a boredparty of Western friends, and failing entirely to amuse them, when, happening to mention as we drove up town, "there goes Mr. Blank, " (naminga prominent leader of cotillions), my guests nearly fell over each otherand out of the carriage in their eagerness to see the gentleman of whomthey had read so much, and who was, in those days, a power in his way, and several times after they expressed the greatest satisfaction athaving seen him. 

I have found, with rare exceptions, and the experience has been ratherwidely gathered all over the country, that this interest--or call it whatyou will--has been entirely without spite or bitterness, rather thedelight of a child in a fairy story. For people are rarely envious ofthings far removed from their grasp. You will find that a woman who isbitter because her neighbor has a girl "help" or a more comfortablecottage, 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 inthe shadow of great wealth, and bred up with tastes that they can neitherrelinquish nor satisfy. The large majority of people show only a good-natured inclination to chaff, none of the "class feeling" which certainpapers and certain politicians try to excite. Outside of the largecities with their foreign-bred, semi-anarchistic populations, the tone isperfectly friendly; for the simple reason that it never entered into thehead of any American to imagine that there _was_ any class difference. Tohim his rich neighbors are simply his lucky neighbors, almost hisrelations, who, starting from a common stock, have been able to "getthere" sooner than he has done. So he wishes them luck on the voyage inwhich he expects to join them as soon as he has had time to make afortune. 

So long as the world exists, or at least until we have reformed it andadopted Mr. Bellamy's delightful scheme of existence as described in"Looking Backward, " great fortunes will be made, and painful contrasts beseen, especially in cities, and it would seem to be the duty of the pressto soften--certainly not to sharpen--the edge of discontent. As long ashuman nature is human nature, and the poor care to read of the doings ofthe more fortunate, by all means give them the reading they enjoy anddemand, but let it be written in a kindly spirit so that it may be acultivation as well as a recreation. Treat this perfectly natural andhonest 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 alifetime--a tour lovingly mapped out in advance with advice fromtravelled friends. Passports were procured, books read, wills made, andfinally, prayers were offered up in church and solemn leave-takingperformed. Once on the other side, descriptive letters wereconscientiously written, and eagerly read by friends at home, --in spiteof these epistles being on the thinnest of paper and with crossingcarried to a fine art, for postage was high in the forties. Above all, ajournal was kept. 

Such a journal lies before me as I write. Four little volumes in wornmorocco covers and faded "Italian" writing, more precious than all myother books combined, their sight recalls that lost time--my youth--when, as a reward, they were unlocked that I might look at the drawings, andthe 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 anotherexistence!

The first volume opens with the voyage across the Atlantic, made in anAmerican clipper (a model unsurpassed the world over), which wasaccomplished in thirteen days, a feat rarely equalled now, by sail. Genial Captain Nye was in command. The same who later, when a steampropelled vessel was offered him, refused, as unworthy of a seaman, "toboil a kettle across the ocean. "

Life friendships were made in those little cabins, under the swinginglamp the travellers re-read last volumes so as to be prepared toappreciate everything on landing. Ireland, England and Scotland werevisited with an enthusiasm born of Scott, the tedium of long coachingjourneys being beguiled by the first "numbers" of "Pickwick, " over whichthe men of the party roared, but which the ladies did not care for, thinking it vulgar, and not to be compared to "Waverley, " "Thaddeus ofWarsaw, " or "The Mysteries of Udolpho. "

A circular letter to our diplomatic agents abroad was presented in eachcity, a rite invariably followed by an invitation to dine, for whichoccasions 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 indispensablecourier engaged, half guide, half servant, who was expected to explore acity, or wait at table, as occasion required. Four days were passedbetween Havre and Paris, and the slow progress across Europe wasaccomplished, Murray in one hand and Byron in the other. 

One page used particularly to attract my boyish attention. It was headedby a naive little drawing of the carriage at an Italian inn door, anddescribed how, after the dangers and discomforts of an Alpine pass, theydescended by sunny slopes into Lombardy. Oh! the rapture that breathesfrom those simple pages! The vintage scenes, the mid-day halt forluncheon eaten in the open air, the afternoon start, the front seat ofthe carriage heaped with purple grapes, used to fire my youthfulimagination 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 mucha matter of course, a necessary part of the routine of life. Much of thebloom is brushed from foreign scenes by descriptive books andphotographs, that St. Mark's or Mt. Blanc has become as familiar to achild's eye as the house he lives in, and in consequence the reality nowinstead of being a revelation is often a disappointment. 

In my youth, it was still an event to cross. I remember my first voyageon 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 werefrom land, got the answer "about a mile!"

"Indeed! How interesting! In which direction?"

"In that direction, madam, " shouted the captain, pointing downward as heturned his back to her. 

If I remember, we were then thirteen days getting to Liverpool, and madethe acquaintance on board of the people with whom we travelled duringmost of that winter. Imagine anyone now making an acquaintance on boarda steamer! In those simple days people depended on the friendships madeat summer hotels or boarding-houses for their visiting list. At present, when a girl comes out, her mother presents her to everybody she will belikely to know if she were to live a century. In the seventies, ladiescheerfully shared their state-rooms with women they did not know, andoften became friends in consequence; but now, unless a certain deck-suitecan be secured, with bath and sitting-room, on one or two particular"steamers, " the great lady is in despair. Yet our mothers were quite asrefined as the present generation, only they took life simply, as theyfound it. 

Children are now taken abroad so young, that before they have reached anage to appreciate what they see, Europe has become to them a twice-toldtale. So true is this, that a receipt for making children good Americansis to bring them up abroad. Once they get back here it is hard to enticethem away again. 

With each improvement in the speed of our steamers, something of theglamour of Europe vanishes. The crowds that yearly rush across see andappreciate less in a lifetime than our parents did in their one tourabroad. A good lady of my acquaintance was complaining recently how muchParis bored her. 

"What can you do to pass the time?" she asked. I innocently answeredthat 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 ofwealthy Americans, including "presentation" in London and a winter inRome or Cairo. And just as a "smart" Englishman is sure to tell you thathe has never visited the "Tower, " it has become good form to ignore thesight-seeing side of Europe; hundreds of New Yorkers never seeinganything of Paris beyond the Rue de la Paix and the Bois. They would assoon think of going to Cluny or St. Denis as of visiting the museum inour park!

Such people go to Fontainebleau because they are buying furniture, andthey 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 themselvesat the Bristol or the Rhin begins the endless treadmill of leaving cardson all the people just seen at home, and whom they will meet again in acouple of months at Newport or Bar Harbor. This duty and theall-entrancing occupation of getting clothes fills up every spare hour. Indeed, clothes seem to pervade the air of Paris in May, the conversationrarely deviating from them. If you meet a lady you know looking ill, andask the cause, it generally turns out to be "four hours a day standing tobe fitted. " Incredible as it may seem, I have been told of one plainmaiden lady, who makes a trip across, spring and autumn, with the soleobject of getting her two yearly outfits. 

Remembering the hundreds of cultivated people whose dream in life (oftenunrealized from lack of means) has been to go abroad and visit the scenestheir reading has made familiar, and knowing what such a trip would meanto them, and how it would be looked back upon during the rest of anobscure life, I felt it almost a duty to "suppress" a wealthy female(doubtless an American cousin of Lady Midas) when she informed me, theother 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 ofshoplifting occur more and more frequently each year, in which thedelinquents are women of education and refinement, or at least belong tofamilies and occupy positions in which one would expect to find thosequalities! The reason, however, is not difficult to discover. 

In the wake of our hasty and immature prosperity has come (as it does toall suddenly enriched societies) a love of ostentation, a desire todazzle the crowd by displays of luxury and rich trappings indicative ofcrude and vulgar standards. The newly acquired money, instead of beingexpended for solid comforts or articles which would afford lastingsatisfaction, is lavished on what can be worn in public, or the outershell of display, while the home table and fireside belongings areneglected. A glance around our theatres, or at the men and women in ourcrowded thoroughfares, is sufficient to reveal to even a casual observerthat the mania for fine clothes and what is costly, _per se_, has becomethe besetting sin of our day and our land. 

The tone of most of the papers and of our theatrical advertisementsreflects this feeling. The amount of money expended for a work of art ora new building is mentioned before any comment as to its beauty orfitness. A play is spoken of as "Manager So and So's thirty-thousand-dollar production!" The fact that a favorite actress will appear in fourdifferent dresses during the three acts of a comedy, each toilet being aspecial creation designed for her by a leading Parisian house, isconsidered of supreme importance and is dwelt upon in the programme as aspecial attraction. 

It would be astonishing if the taste of our women were different, considering the way clothes are eternally being dangled before theireyes. Leading papers publish illustrated supplements devoted exclusivelyto the subject of attire, thus carrying temptation into every humblehome, and suggesting unattainable luxuries. Windows in many of thelarger shops contain life-sized manikins loaded with the latest costlyand ephemeral caprices of fashion arranged to catch the eye of the poorerclass of women, who stand in hundreds gazing at the display like larksattracted by a mirror! Watch those women as they turn away, and listento their sighs of discontent and envy. Do they not tell volumes aboutpetty hopes and ambitions?

I do not refer to the wealthy women whose toilets are in keeping withtheir incomes and the general footing of their households; that theyshould spend more or less in fitting themselves out daintily is of littleimportance. The point where this subject becomes painful is in familiesof small means where young girls imagine that to be elaborately dressedis the first essential of existence, and, in consequence, bend theirlabors and their intelligence towards this end. Last spring I asked anold friend where she and her daughters intended passing their summer. Heranswer struck me as being characteristic enough to quote: "We should muchprefer, " she said, "returning to Bar Harbor, for we all enjoy that placeand have many friends there. But the truth is, my daughters have boughtthemselves very little in the way of toilet this year, as our financesare not in a flourishing condition. So my poor girls will be obliged tomake their last year's dresses do for another season. Under thesecircumstances, it is out of the question for us to return a second summerto the same place. "

I do not know how this anecdote strikes my readers. It made methoughtful and sad to think that, in a family of intelligent andpractical women, such a reason should be considered sufficient tooutweigh enjoyment, social relations, even health, and allowed to changethe plans of an entire family. 

As American women are so fond of copying English ways they should bewilling to take a few lessons on the subject of raiment from across thewater. As this is not intended to be a dissertation on "How to DressWell on Nothing a Year, " and as I feel the greatest diffidence inapproaching a subject of which I know absolutely nothing, it will bebetter to sheer off from these reefs and quicksands. Every one who readsthese lines will know perfectly well what is meant, when reference ismade 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 orelevated cars or into ferry boats and local trains) is the utterdissonance between the outfit of most of the women I meet and theirposition and occupation. So universal is this, that it might almost belaid down as an axiom, that the American woman, no matter in what walk oflife you observe her, or what the time or the place, is alwayspersistently and grotesquely overdressed. From the women who frequentthe hotels of our summer or winter resorts, down all the steps of thesocial staircase to the char-woman, who consents (spasmodically) toremove the dust and waste-papers from my office, there seems to be thesame complete disregard of fitness. The other evening, in leaving myrooms, I brushed against a portly person in the half-light of thecorridor. There was a shimmer of (what appeared to my inexperienced eyesas) costly stuffs, a huge hat crowned the shadow itself, "topped bynodding plumes, " which seemed to account for the depleted condition of myfeather 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 inthe building, for the special purpose of her morning and eveningtransformations, which she underwent in the belief that her socialposition in Avenue A would suffer, should she appear in the streetswearing anything less costly than seal-skin and velvet or such imitationsof 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 offifteen hundred dollars a year. Their rent (with which, by the way, theyare always in arrears) is three hundred dollars. I am favored spring andautumn by a visit from the ladies of that family, in the hope (generallyfutile) of inducing me to do some ornamental papering or painting intheir residence, subjects on which they have by experience found my agentto be unapproachable. When those four women descend upon me, I am fairlydazzled by the splendor of their attire, and lost in wonder as to how theprice of all that finery can have been squeezed out of the twelveremaining hundreds of their income. When I meet the father he is shabbyto the outer limits of the genteel. His hat has, I am sure, supportedthe suns and snowstorms of a dozen seasons. There is a threadbare shineon his apparel that suggests a heartache in each whitened seam, but theladies are mirrors of fashion, as well as moulds of form. What canremain for any creature comforts after all those fine clothes have beenpaid for? And how much is put away for the years when the long-sufferingmoney maker will be past work, or saved towards the time when sickness oraccident 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 wouldbarely have been in keeping with their appearance. 

Not long ago, a great English nobleman, who is also famous in theyachting world, visited this country accompanied by his two daughters, high-bred and genial ladies. No self-respecting American shop girl orfashionable typewriter would have condescended to appear in theinexpensive attire which those English women wore. Wherever one metthem, at dinner, _fete_, or ball, they were always the most simplydressed women in the room. I wonder if it ever occurred to any of theirgorgeously attired hostesses, that it was because their transatlanticguests were so sure of their position, that they contented themselveswith such simple toilets knowing that nothing they might wear couldeither improve or alter their standing. 

In former ages, sumptuary laws were enacted by parental governments, inthe hope of suppressing extravagance in dress, the state of affairs wedeplore now, not being a new development of human weakness, but as old aswealth. 

The desire to shine by the splendor of one's trappings is the first ideaof the parvenu, especially here in this country, where the ambitious aredenied the pleasure of acquiring a title, and where official rank carrieswith it so little social weight. Few more striking ways presentthemselves to the crude and half-educated for the expenditure of a newfortune than the purchase of sumptuous apparel, the satisfaction beingimmediate and material. The wearer of a complete and perfect toilet mustexperience a delight of which the uninitiated know nothing, for suchcruel sacrifices are made and so many privations endured to procure thissatisfaction. When I see groups of women, clad in the latest designs ofpurple and fine linen, stand shivering on street corners of a winternight, until they can crowd into a car, I doubt if the joy they get fromtheir clothes, compensates them for the creature comforts they are forcedto forego, and I wonder if it never occurs to them to spend less on theirwardrobes and so feel they can afford to return from a theatre or concertcomfortably, in a cab, as a foreign woman, with their income would do. 

There is a stoical determination about the American point of view thatcompels a certain amount of respect. Our countrywomen will denythemselves pleasures, will economize on their food and will remain intown during the summer, but when walking abroad they must be clad in thebest, so that no one may know by their appearance if the income becounted by hundreds or thousands. 

While these standards prevail and the female mind is fixed on thissubject with such dire intent, it is not astonishing that a weaker sisteris occasionally tempted beyond her powers of resistance. Nor that eachday a new case of a well-dressed woman thieving in a shop reaches ourears. The poor feeble-minded creature is not to blame. She is but thereflexion of the minds around her and is probably like the lady Emersontells of, who confessed to him "that the sense of being perfectly well-dressed had given her a feeling of inward tranquillity which religion waspowerless 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, farup in the dim vastnesses of a Roman palace, used to say that she had onlyknown one really happy marriage made by an American girl abroad. 

In those days, being young and innocent, I considered that remarkcynical, and in my heart thought nothing could be more romantic andcharming than for a fair compatriot to assume an historic title andretire to her husband's estates, and rule smilingly over him and adevoted tenantry, as in the last act of a comic opera, when arose-colored light is burning and the orchestra plays the last brilliantchords of a wedding march. 

There seemed to my perverted sense a certain poetic justice about thefact that money, gained honestly but prosaically, in groceries or gas, should go to regild an ancient blazon or prop up the crumbling walls ofsome stately palace abroad. 

Many thoughtful years and many cruel realities have taught me that mygracious hostess of the "seventies" was right, and that marriage underthese conditions is apt to be much more like the comic opera after thecurtain has been rung down, when the lights are out, the applaudingpublic gone home, and the weary actors brought slowly back to the presentand the positive, are wondering how they are to pay their rent or dodgethe warrant in ambush around the corner. 

International marriages usually come about from a deficient knowledge ofthe world. The father becomes rich, the family travel abroad, somemutual friend (often from purely interested motives) produces a suitorfor the hand of the daughter, in the shape of a "prince" with a titlethat 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 daughterhob-nobbing with royalty, and (intoxicating thought!) snubbing the"swells" at home who had shown reluctance to recognize him and hisfamily. 

It is next to impossible for him to get any reliable information abouthis future son-in-law in a country where, as an American, he has fewsocial relations, belongs to no club, and whose idiom is a sealed book tohim. Every circumstance conspires to keep the flaws on the article forsale out of sight and place the suitor in an advantageous light. Severalweeks' "courting" follows, paterfamilias agrees to part with a handsomeshare of his earnings, and a marriage is "arranged. "

In the case where the girl has retained some of her self-respect thesuitor is made to come to her country for the ceremony. And, that thecontrast between European ways and our simple habits may not be toostriking, an establishment is hastily got together, with hired liveriesand new-bought carriages, as in a recent case in this state. Thesensational papers write up this "international union, " and publish"faked" portraits of the bride and her noble spouse. The sovereign ofthe groom's country (enchanted that some more American money is to beimported into his land) sends an economical present and an autographletter. The act ends. Limelight and slow music!

In a few years rumors of dissent and trouble float vaguely back to thegirl's family. Finally, either a great scandal occurs, and there is onedishonored home the more in the world, or an expatriated woman, thousandsof miles from the friends and relatives who might be of some comfort toher, 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 ofher lost illusions, and the father wakes up from his dream to realizethat his wealth has only served to ruin what he loved best in all theworld. 

Sometimes the conditions are delightfully comic, as in a well-known case, where the daughter, who married into an indolent, happy-go-lucky Italianfamily, had inherited her father's business push and energy along withhis fortune, and immediately set about "running" her husband's estate asshe had seen her father do his bank. She tried to revive ahalf-forgotten industry in the district, scraped and whitewashed theirpicturesque old villa, proposed her husband's entering business, and inshort dashed head down against all his inherited traditions and nationalprejudices, until her new family loathed the sight of the brisk Americanface, and the poor she had tried to help, sulked in their newly drainedhouses and refused to be comforted. Her ways were not Italian ways, andshe seemed to the nun-like Italian ladies, almost unsexed, as she trampedabout the fields, talking artificial manure and subsoil drainage with themen. Yet neither she nor her husband was to blame. The young Italianhad but followed the teachings of his family, which decreed that the onlyhonorable way for an aristocrat to acquire wealth was to marry it. TheAmerican wife honestly tried to do her duty in this new position, naivelythinking she could engraft transatlantic "go" upon the indolent Italiancharacter. Her work was in vain; she made herself and her husband sounpopular that they are now living in this country, regretting too latethe error of their ways. 

Another case but little less laughable, is that of a Boston girl with aneat little fortune of her own, who, when married to the young Vienneseof her choice, found that he expected her to live with his family on thethird floor of their "palace" (the two lower floors being rented toforeigners), 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 forhim 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 mostnatural arrangement in the world. 

It certainly is astonishing that we, the most patriotic of nations, withsuch high opinion of ourselves and our institutions, should be so readyto hand over our daughters and our ducats to the first foreigner who asksfor them, often requiring less information about him than we shouldconsider necessary before buying a horse or a dog. 

Women of no other nation have this mania for espousing aliens. Nowhereelse would a girl with a large fortune dream of marrying out of hercountry. 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 andtraditions of her youth? If she is taken abroad young, she may stillhope to replace her friends as is often done. But the real reason ofunhappiness (greater and deeper than this) lies in the fundamentaldifference of the whole social structure between our country and that ofher adoption, and the radically different way of looking at every side oflife. 

Surely a girl must feel that a man who allows a marriage to be arrangedfor him (and only signs the contact because its pecuniary clauses are tohis satisfaction, and who would withdraw in a moment if these weresuppressed), must have an entirely different point of view from her ownon all the vital issues of life. 

Foreigners undoubtedly make excellent husbands for their own women. Butthey are, except in rare cases, unsatisfactory helpmeets for Americangirls. It is impossible to touch on more than a side or two of thissubject. But as an illustration the following contrasted stories may becited:

Two sisters of an aristocratic American family, each with an income ofover 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 werematters of course. In both cases, our compatriots discovered that theirhusbands (neither of them penniless) had entirely different views. Inthe first place, they were told that it was considered "bad form" inFrance for young married women to entertain; besides, the money wasneeded for improvements, and in many other ways, and as every well-to-doFrench family puts aside at least a third of its income as _dots_ for thechildren (boys as well as girls), these brides found themselves crampedfor money for the first time in their lives, and obliged, during theirone month a year in Paris, to put up with hired traps, and depend ontheir friends for evenings at the opera. 

This story is a telling set-off to the case of an American wife, who oneday received a windfall in the form of a check for a tidy amount. Sheimmediately proposed a trip abroad to her husband, but found that hepreferred to remain at home in the society of his horses and dogs. Soour fair compatriot starts off (with his full consent), has her outing, spends her little "pile, " and returns after three or four months to thehome of her delighted spouse. 

Do these two stories need any comment? Let our sisters and their friendsthink twice before they make themselves irrevocably wheels in a machinewhose working is unknown to them, lest they be torn to pieces as itmoves. Having the good luck to be born in the "paradise of women, " letthem beware how they leave it, charm the serpent never so wisely, forthey 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 andgroundless likes and dislikes, the bland contentment that buoys up theincompetent is the most difficult of all vagaries to account for. Rarelydo twenty-four hours pass without examples of this exasperating weaknessappearing on the surface of those shallows that commonplace people sonaively call "their minds. "

What one would expect is extreme modesty, in the half-educated or theignorant, and self-approbation higher up in the scale, where it mightmore reasonably dwell. Experience, however, teaches that exactly theopposite is the case among those who have achieved success. 

The accidents of a life turned by chance out of the beaten tracks, havethrown me at times into acquaintanceship with some of the greater lightsof the last thirty years. And not only have they been, as a rule, mostunassuming men and women; but in the majority of cases positively self-depreciatory; doubting of themselves and their talents, constantly aimingat greater perfection in their art or a higher development of theirpowers, never contented with what they have achieved, beyond the ideathat it has been another step toward their goal. Knowing this, it isalways a shock on meeting the mediocre people who form such adiscouraging majority in any society, to discover that they are all sopleased 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 waistcoatand jangling fobs, occupied the after-dinner hour in imparting second-hand information as his personal views on literature and art? Can younot hear him saying once again: "I don't pretend to know anything aboutart and all that sort of thing, you know, but when I go to an exhibitionI can always pick out the best pictures at a glance. Sort of a way Ihave, and I never make mistakes, you know. "

Then go and watch, as I have, Henri Rochefort as he laboriously forms theopinions that are to appear later in one of his "_Salons_, " realizing thewhile that he is _facile princeps_ among the art critics of his day, thatwith a line he can make or mar a reputation and by a word draw theadmiring crowd around an unknown canvas. While Rochefort toils andponders and hesitates, do you suppose a doubt as to his own astutenessever dims the self-complacency of White Waistcoat? Never!

There lies the strength of the feeble-minded. By a special dispensationof Providence, they can never see but one side of a subject, so arealways convinced that they are right, and from the height of theircontentment, 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 quitesure you like the effect of her latest acquisition--someeighteenth-century statuette or screen (flotsam, probably, from the greatshipwreck of Versailles), and listen earnestly to your verdict. The goodsoul who has just furnished her house by contract, with the latest "LouisFourteenth Street" productions, conducts you complacently through herchambers of horrors, wreathed in tranquil smiles, born of ignorance andthat smug assurance granted only to the--small. 

When a small intellect goes in for cultivating itself and improving itsmind, you realize what the poet meant in asserting that a little learningwas a dangerous thing. For Mediocrity is apt, when it dines out, to getup a subject beforehand, and announce to an astonished circle, as quitenew and personal discoveries, that the Renaissance was introduced intoFrance 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 floodedwith their productions. When White Waistcoat, for example, takes topainting, 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 Ifeel I should not let myself be discouraged. "

The problem of life is said to be the finding of a happiness that is notenjoyed at the expense of others, and surely this class have solved thatSphinx's riddle, for they float through their days in a dream ofcomplacency disturbed neither by corroding doubt nor harassed byjealousies. 

Whole families of feeble-minded people, on the strength of an ancestorwho achieved distinction a hundred years ago, live in constantthanksgiving that they "are not as other men. " None of the great man'sdescendants have done anything to be particularly proud of since theirremote progenitor signed the Declaration of Independence or governed acolony. They have vegetated in small provincial cities and inter-marriedinto other equally fortunate families, but the sense of superiority isever present to sustain them, under straitened circumstances anddiminishing prestige. The world may move on around them, but they neveradvance. Why should they? They have reached perfection. The brains andenterprise that have revolutionized our age knock in vain at their doors. They belong to that vast "majority that is always in the wrong, " being sopleased with themselves, their ways, and their feeble little lines ofthought, that any change or advancement gives their system a shock. 

A painter I know was once importuned for a sketch by a lady of thisclass. After many delays and renewed demands he presented her one day, when she and some friends were visiting his studio, with a delightfulopen-air study simply framed. She seemed confused at the offering, tohis astonishment, as she had not lacked _aplomb_ in asking for thesketch. After much blushing and fumbling she succeeded in getting thepainting loose, and handing back the frame, remarked:

"I will take the painting, but you must keep the frame. My husband wouldnever allow me to accept anything of value from you!"--and smiled on thespeechless painter, doubtless charmed with her own tact. 

Complacent people are the same drag on a society that a brake would be toa coach going up hill. They are the "eternal negative" and wouldextinguish, if they could, any light stronger than that to which theirweak eyes have been accustomed. They look with astonishment and distrustat 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 personalitiesas they are themselves, suggesting, if you are willing to waste your timelistening to their twaddle, that there is something radically wrong inany innovation, that both "Church and State" will be imperilled if thingsare altered. No blight, no mildew is more fatal to a plant than the"complacent" are to the world. They resent any progress and are offendedif you mention before them any new standards or points of view. "Whathas been good enough for us and our parents should certainly besatisfactory to the younger generations. " It seems to the contented likepure presumption on the part of their acquaintances to wander afterstrange gods, in the shape of new ideals, higher standards of culture, ora perfected refinement of surroundings. 

We are perhaps wrong to pity complacent people. It is for another classour sympathy should be kept; for those who cannot refrain from doubtingof themselves and the value of their work--those unfortunate gifted andartistic spirits who descend too often the _via dolorosa_ of discontentand despair, who have a higher ideal than their neighbors, and, instruggling after an unattainable perfection, fall by the wayside. 

No. 7--The Discontent of Talent

The complacency that buoys up self-sufficient souls, soothing them withthe illusion that they themselves, their towns, country, language, andhabits 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 itrare or delightfully absent in any society of gifted or imaginativepeople. 

Among our globe-trotting compatriots this defect is much less generalthan in the older nations of the world, for the excellent reason, thatthe moment a man travels or takes the trouble to know people of differentnationalities, his armor of complacency receives so severe a blow, thatit is shattered forever, the wanderer returning home wiser and much moremodest. There seems to be something fatal to conceit in the air of greatcentres; professionally or in general society a man so soon finds hislevel. 

The "great world" may foster other faults; human nature is sure todevelop some in every walk of life. Smug contentment, however, disappears in its rarefied atmosphere, giving place to a craving forimprovement, a nervous alertness that keeps the mind from stagnating andurges it on to do its best. 

It is never the beautiful woman who sits down in smiling serenity beforeher mirror. She is tireless in her efforts to enhance her beauty and setit off to the best advantage. Her figure is never slender enough, norher carriage sufficiently erect to satisfy. But the "frump" will letherself and all her surroundings go to seed, not from humbleness of mindor an overwhelming sense of her own unworthiness, but in pure complacentconceit. 

A criticism to which the highly gifted lay themselves open from those whodo not understand them, is their love of praise, the critics failing tograsp 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 thegreen pastures of success, but goads them constantly up the rocky sidesof endeavor. It is not that they love flattery, but that they needapprobation as a counterpoise to the dark moments of self-abasement andas a sustaining aid for higher flights. 

Many years ago I was present at a final sitting which my master, CarolusDuran, gave to one of my fair compatriots. He knew that the lady wasleaving Paris on the morrow, and that in an hour, her husband and hisfriends were coming to see and criticise the portrait--always a terribleordeal for an artist. 

To any one familiar with this painter's moods, it was evident that theresult of the sitting was not entirely satisfactory. The quickbreathing, the impatient tapping movement of the foot, the swift backwardsprings to obtain a better view, so characteristic of him in moments ofdoubt, and which had twenty years before earned him the name of _ledanseur_ from his fellow-copyists at the Louvre, betrayed to even acasual observer that his discouragement and discontent were at boilingpoint. 

The sound of a bell and a murmur of voices announced the entrance of thevisitors into the vast studio. After the formalities of introduction hadbeen accomplished the new-comers glanced at the portrait, but utterednever a word. From it they passed in a perfectly casual manner to aninspection of the beautiful contents of the room, investigating thetapestries, admiring the armor, and finally, after another glance at theportrait, the husband remarked: "You have given my wife a jolly longneck, haven't you?" and, turning to his friends, began laughing andchatting in English. 

If vitriol had been thrown on my poor master's quivering frame, theeffect could not have been more instantaneous, his ignorance of thelanguage spoken doubtless exaggerating his impression of being ridiculed. Suddenly he turned very white, and before any of us had divined hisintention he had seized a Japanese sword lying by and cut a dozen gashesacross the canvas. Then, dropping his weapon, he flung out of the room, leaving his sitter and her friends in speechless consternation, to wonderthen and ever after in what way they had offended him. In theiropinions, if a man had talent and understood his business, he shouldproduce portraits with the same ease that he would answer dinnerinvitations, and if they paid for, they were in no way bound also topraise, his work. They were entirely pleased with the result, but didnot consider it necessary to tell him so, no idea having crossed theirminds that he might be in one of those moods so frequent with artisticnatures, 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 ofconceit, you will generally find among the "stars" abysmal depths ofdiscouragement and despair. One great tenor, who has delighted New Yorkaudiences during several winters past, invariably announces to hisintimates on arising that his "voice has gone, " and that, in consequencehe will "never sing again, " and has to be caressed and cajoled back intosome semblance of confidence before attempting a performance. This sameartist, with an almost limitless repertoire and a reputation no newsuccesses could enhance, recently risked all to sing what he considered ahigher class of music, infinitely more fatiguing to his voice, because hewas impelled onward by the ideal that forces genius to constantimprovement and development of its powers. 

What the people who meet these artists occasionally at a private concertor behind the scenes during the intense strain of a representation, taketoo readily for monumental egoism and conceit, is, the greater part ofthe time, merely the desire for a sustaining word, a longing for thestimulant of praise. 

All actors and singers are but big children, and must be humored andpetted like children when you wish them to do their best. It isnecessary for them to feel in touch with their audiences; to be assuredthat they are not falling below the high ideals formed for their work. 

Some winters ago a performance at the opera nearly came to a standstillbecause an all-conquering soprano was found crying in her dressing-room. After many weary moments of consolation and questioning, it came out thatshe felt quite sure she no longer had any talent. One of the othersingers had laughed at her voice, and in consequence there was nothingleft to live for. A half-hour later, owing to judicious "treatment, " shewas 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 mortalvessels it consumes with its flame. No adulation can turn such naturesfrom their goal, and in the hour of triumph the slave is always at theirside to whisper the word of warning. This discontent is the leaven thathas raised the whole loaf of dull humanity to better things and higherefforts, those privileged to feel it are the suns that illuminate oursystem. If on these luminaries observers have discovered spots, it iswell to remember that these blemishes are but the defects of theirqualities, and better far than the total eclipse that shrouds so large apart of humanity in colorless complacency. 

It will never be known how many master-pieces have been lost to the worldbecause at the critical moment a friend has not been at hand with thestimulant of sympathy and encouragement needed by an overworked, straining artist who was beginning to lose confidence in himself; tosoothe his irritated nerves with the balm of praise, and take his pooraching head on a friendly shoulder and let him sob out there all hisdoubt and discouragement. 

So let us not be niggardly or ungenerous in meting out to strugglingfellow-beings their share, and perchance a little more than their shareof approbation and applause, poor enough return, after all, for thepleasure their labors have procured us. What adequate compensation canwe mete out to an author for the hours of delight and self-forgetfulnesshis 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 welove?

The little return that it is in our power to make for all the joy thesegifted fellow-beings bring into our lives is (closing our eyes to minorimperfections) to warmly applaud them as they move upward, along theirstony path. 

No. 8--Slouch

I should like to see, in every school-room of our growing country, inevery business office, at the railway stations, and on street corners, large placards placed with "Do not slouch" printed thereon in distinctand imposing characters. If ever there was a tendency that needednipping 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 benightedand effete nations of the Old World, on whom the untravelled Americanlooks down from the height of his superiority, I am struck anew by thecontrast between the trim, well-groomed officials left behind on one sideof the ocean and the happy-go-lucky, slouching individuals I find on theother. 

As I ride up town this unpleasant impression deepens. In the "littleMother 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 whipand elbow refreshingly correct, showing that they take pride in theircalling, and have been at some pains to turn themselves out as smart inappearance as finances would allow. 

Here, on the contrary, the stage and cab drivers I meet seem to be undera blight, and to have lost all interest in life. They lounge on the box, their legs straggling aimlessly, one hand holding the reins, the otherhanging dejectedly by the side. Yet there is little doubt that theseheartbroken 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, andhardly raises his eye-lids as he languidly manoeuvres the rope. I haveseen that boy now for months, but never when his boots and clothes werebrushed or when his cravat was not riding proudly above his collar. Onoccasions I have offered him pins, which he took wearily, doubtlessbecause it was less trouble than to refuse. The next day, however, hiscravat 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 tohave it always so long and so unkempt? More than once, when expectingcallers, I have bribed him to have it cut, but it seemed to grow in thenight, back to its poetic profusion. 

In what does this noble disregard for appearances which characterizesAmerican men originate? Our climate, as some suggest, or discouragementat not all being millionaires? It more likely comes from an absence withus of the military training that abroad goes so far toward licking youngmen into shape. 

I shall never forget the surprise on the face of a French statesman towhom I once expressed my sympathy for his country, laboring under theburden of so vast a standing army. He answered:

"The financial burden is doubtless great; but you have others. Witnessyour pension expenditures. With us the money drawn from the people isused in such a way as to be of inestimable value to them. We take theyoung hobbledehoy farm-hand or mechanic, ignorant, mannerless, uncleanlyas he may be, and turn him out at the end of three years with hisregiment, self-respecting and well-mannered, with habits of cleanlinessand obedience, having acquired a bearing, and a love of order that willcling to and serve him all his life. We do not go so far, " he added, "asour English neighbors in drilling men into superb manikins of 'form' andcarriage. Our authorities do not consider it necessary. But we reclaimyouths from the slovenliness of their native village or workshop and makethem tidy and mannerly citizens. "

These remarks came to mind the other day as I watched a group of NewEngland youths lounging on the steps of the village store, or sitting inrows on a neighboring fence, until I longed to try if even a judicialarrangement of tacks, 'business-end up, ' on these favorite seats wouldinfuse any energy into their movements. I came to the conclusion that myFrench 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 andAnnapolis turn out. 

If any one doubts what kind of men slouching youths develop into, let himlook when he travels, at the dejected appearance of the farmhousesthroughout our land. Surely our rural populations are not so much poorerthan those of other countries. Yet when one compares the dreary homes ofeven our well-to-do farmers with the smiling, well-kept hamlets seen inEngland or on the Continent, such would seem to be the case. 

If ours were an old and bankrupt nation, this air of discouragement anddecay could not be greater. Outside of the big cities one looks in vainfor some sign of American dash and enterprise in the appearance of ourmen and their homes. 

During a journey of over four thousand miles, made last spring as theguest of a gentleman who knows our country thoroughly, I was impressedmost painfully with this abject air. Never in all those days did we seea fruit-tree trained on some sunny southern wall, a smiling flower-gardenor carefully clipped hedge. My host told me that hardly the necessaryvegetables are grown, the inhabitants of the West and South preferringcanned food. It is less trouble!

If you wish to form an idea of the extent to which slouch prevails in ourcountry, try to start a "village improvement society, " and experience, asothers have done, the apathy and ill-will of the inhabitants when you goabout among them and strive to summon some of their local pride to youraid. 

In the town near which I pass my summers, a large stone, fallen from apassing dray, lay for days in the middle of the principal street, until Ipaid some boys to remove it. No one cared, and the dull-eyed inhabitantswould doubtless be looking at it still but for my impatience. 

One would imagine the villagers were all on the point of moving away (andthey generally are, if they can sell their land), so little interest dothey show in your plans. Like all people who have fallen into badhabits, 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. Ourrailway and steam-boat systems have tried in vain to combat it, andsupplied their employees with a livery (I beg the free and independentvoter's pardon, a uniform!), with but little effect. The inherenttendency is too strong for the corporations. The conductors stillshuffle 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 wholeBoard of Directors. 

Go down to Washington, after a visit to the Houses of Parliament or theChamber of Deputies, and observe the contrast between the bearing of ourSenators and Representatives and the air of their _confreres_ abroad. Ourlaw-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 ofelection who appeared before his constituents in other than theaccustomed shabby frock-coat, unbuttoned and floating, a pot hat, nogloves, as much doubtfully white shirt-front as possible, and a wisp ofblack silk for a tie; and if he can exhibit also a chin-whisker, hischances of election are materially increased. 

Nothing offends an eye accustomed to our native _laisser aller_ so muchas a well-brushed hat and shining boots. When abroad, it is easy to spota compatriot as soon and as far as you can see one, by his gracelessgait, 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, sohe flops and straggles until, for the honor of your land, you long toshake him and set him squarely on his legs. 

No amount of reasoning can convince me that outward slovenliness is not asign of inward and moral supineness. A neglected exterior generallymeans a lax moral code. The man who considers it too much trouble to siterect can hardly have given much time to his tub or his toilet. Havingneglected his clothes, he will neglect his manners, and between moralsand manners we know the tie is intimate. 

In the Orient a new reign is often inaugurated by the construction of amosque. Vast expense is incurred to make it as splendid as possible. But, once completed, it is never touched again. Others are built bysucceeding sovereigns, but neither thought nor treasure is ever expendedon 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 privateowners and corporations. Streets are paved, lamp-posts erected, store-fronts carefully adorned, but from the hour the workman puts hisfinishing touch upon them they are abandoned to the hand of fate. Themud may cake up knee-deep, wind and weather work their own sweet will, itis no one's business to interfere. 

When abroad one of my amusements has been of an early morning to watchParis making its toilet. The streets are taking a bath, liveriedattendants are blacking the boots of the lamp-posts andnewspaper-_kiosques_, the shop-fronts are being shaved and having theirhair curled, cafe's and restaurants are putting on clean shirts and tyingtheir cravats smartly before their many mirrors. By the time the worldis 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 airof cheerfulness and thrift, and the utter lack of it that impressesforeigners so painfully on arriving at our shores. 

It has been the fashion to laugh at the dude and his high collar, at thedarky in his master's cast-off clothes, aping style and fashion. Betterthe dude, better the colored dandy, better even the Bowery "tough" withhis affected carriage, for they at least are reaching blindly out aftersomething better than their surroundings, striving after an ideal, andare in just so much the superiors of the foolish souls who mockthem--better, even misguided efforts, than the ignoble stagnant quagmireof slouch into which we seem to be slowly descending. 

No. 9--Social Suggestion

The question of how far we are unconsciously influenced by people andsurroundings, in our likes and dislikes, our opinions, and even in ourpleasures and intimate tastes, is a delicate and interesting one, for theline between success and failure in the world, as on the stage or in mostof 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 isworthy of consideration. 

Has it never happened to you, for instance, to dine with friends and goafterwards in a jolly humor to the play which proved so delightful thatyou insist on taking your family immediately to see it; when to yourastonishment you discover that it is neither clever nor amusing, on thecontrary rather dull. Your family look at you in amazement and wonderwhat you had seen to admire in such an asinine performance. There was acase of suggestion! You had been influenced by your friends and hadshared their opinions. The same thing occurs on a higher scale when oneis raised out of one's self by association with gifted and originalpeople, a communion with more cultivated natures which causes you todiscover and appreciate a thousand hidden beauties in literature, art ormusic that left to yourself, you would have failed to notice. Underthese circumstances you will often be astonished at the point andpiquancy of your own conversation. This is but too true of a number ofsubjects. 

We fondly believe our opinions and convictions to be original, and withinnocent conceit, imagine that we have formed them for ourselves. Theillusion of being unlike other people is a common vanity. Beware of theman who asserts such a claim. He is sure to be a bore and will serve upto you, as his own, a muddle of ideas and opinions which he has absorbedlike a sponge from his surroundings. 

No place is more propitious for studying this curious phenomenon, thanbehind the scenes of a theatre, the last few nights before a firstperformance. The whole company is keyed up to a point of mutualadmiration that they are far from feeling generally. "The piece ischarming and sure to be a success. " The author and the interpreters ofhis thoughts are in complete communion. The first night comes. Thepiece is a failure! Drop into the greenroom then and you will find anastonishing change has taken place. The Star will take you into a cornerand assert that, she "always knew the thing could not go, it was tooimbecile, with such a company, it was folly to expect anything else. " Theauthor will abuse the Star and the management. The whole troupe isfrankly 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 withtameness the most astonishing theories and opinions. Whole circles willgo on assuring each other how clever Miss So-and-So is, or, how beautifulthey think someone else. Not because these good people are any cleverer, or more attractive than their neighbors, but simply because it is in theair to have these opinions about them. To such an extent does this holdgood, that certain persons are privileged to be vulgar and rude, to sayimpertinent things and make remarks that would ostracize a less fortunateindividual from the polite world for ever; society will only smilinglyshrug its shoulders and say: "It is only Mr. So-and-So's way. " It isuseless to assert that in cases like these, people are in possession oftheir normal senses. They are under influences of which they areperfectly unconscious. 

Have you ever seen a piece guyed? Few sadder sights exist, the humanbeing rarely getting nearer the brute than when engaged in thisamusement. Nothing the actor or actress can do will satisfy the public. Men who under ordinary circumstances would be incapable of insulting awoman, will whistle and stamp and laugh, at an unfortunate girl who isdoing her utmost to amuse them. A terrible example of this was given twowinters ago at one of our concert halls, when a family of Western singerswere subjected to absolute ill-treatment at the hands of the public. Theyoung girls were perfectly sincere, in their rude way, but this did notprevent men from offering them every insult malice could devise, andmaking them a target for every missile at hand. So little does thepublic think for itself in cases like this, that at the opening of theperformance had some well-known person given the signal for applause, thewhole audience would, in all probability, have been delighted and madethe wretched sisters a success. 

In my youth it was the fashion to affect admiration for the Italianschool of painting and especially for the great masters of theRenaissance. Whole families of perfectly inartistic English andAmericans might then he heard conscientiously admiring the ceiling of theSistine Chapel or Leonardo's Last Supper (Botticelli had not beeninvented then) in the choicest guide-book language. 

When one considers the infinite knowledge of technique required tounderstand the difficulties overcome by the giants of the Renaissance andto appreciate the intrinsic qualities of their creations, one asks one'sself in wonder what our parents admired in those paintings, and whattempted them to bring home and adorn their houses with such dreadfulcopies of their favorites. For if they appreciated the originals theynever would have bought the copies, and if the copies pleased them, theymust have been incapable of enjoying the originals. Yet all these peoplethought themselves perfectly sincere. To-day you will see the same thinggoing on before the paintings of Claude Monet and Besnard, the sameadmiration expressed by people who, you feel perfectly sure, do notrealize why these works of art are superior and can no more explain toyou why they think as they do than the sheep that follow each otherthrough a hole in a wall, can give a reason for their actions. 

Dress and fashion in clothes are subjects above all others, where theineptitude of the human mind is most evident. Can it be explained in anyother way, why the fashions of yesterday always appear so hideous tous, --almost grotesque? Take up an old album of photographs and glanceover the faded contents. Was there ever anything so absurd? Look at thetop 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 wayin which girls were dressed in my youth, I wonder how any of us ever gota husband. "

Study a photograph of the Empress Eugenie, that supreme arbiter ofelegance and grace. Oh! those bunchy hooped skirts! That awful Indiashawl pinned off the shoulders, and the bonnet perched on a roll of hairin the nape of the neck! What were people thinking of at that time? Werethey lunatics to deform in this way the beautiful lines of the human bodywhich it should be the first object of toilet to enhance, or were theyonly lacking in the artistic sense? Nothing of the kind. And what ismore, they were convinced that the real secret of beauty in dress hadbeen discovered by them; that past fashions were absurd, and that thefuture could not improve on their creations. The sculptors and paintersof that day (men of as great talent as any now living), were enthusiasticin reproducing those monstrosities in marble or on canvas, and authorsraved about the ideal grace with which a certain beauty draped her shawl. 

Another marked manner in which we are influenced by circumambientsuggestion, is in the transient furore certain games and pastimes create. We see intelligent people so given over to this influence as barely toallow themselves time to eat and sleep, begrudging the hours thus stolenfrom 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 bythe accumulated force of other people's opinions, youths and maidens, oldduffers and mature spinsters are willing to pass many hours daily in allkinds of weather, solemnly following an indian-rubber ball across ten-acre lots. 

If you suggest to people who are laboring under the illusion they areamusing 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 severaltimes around a plowed field, they laugh at you in derision and instantlyput 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 cometo interrupt a game of croquet would have ordered lanterns lighted inorder to finish the match so enthralling were its intricacies. 

Everybody has known how to play _Bezique_ in this country for years, yetwithin the last eighteen months, whole circles of our friends have beenseized with a midsummer madness and willingly sat glued to a card-tablethrough long hot afternoons and again after dinner until day dawned ontheir folly. 

Certain _Memoires_ of Louis Fifteenth's reign tell of an "unravelling"mania that developed at his court. It began by some people fraying outold silks to obtain the gold and silver threads from worn-out stuffs;this occupation soon became the rage, nothing could restrain the deliriumof destruction, great ladies tore priceless tapestries from their wallsand brocades from their furniture, in order to unravel those materialsand as the old stock did not suffice for the demand thousands were spenton new brocades and velvets, which were instantly destroyed, entertainments were given where unravelling was the only amusementoffered, the entire court thinking and talking of nothing else formonths. 

What is the logical deduction to be drawn from all this? Simply thatpeople do not see with their eyes or judge with their understandings;that an all-pervading hypnotism, an ambient suggestion, at times envelopsus taking from people all free will, and replacing it with the taste andjudgment of the moment. 

The number of people is small in each generation, who are strong enoughto rise above their surroundings and think for themselves. The rest areas dry leaves on a stream. They float along and turn gayly in theeddies, convinced all the time (as perhaps are the leaves) that they actentirely from their own volition and that their movements are having aprofound influence on the direction and force of the current. 

No. 10--Bohemia

Lunching with a talented English comedian and his wife the other day, theconversation turned on Bohemia, the evasive no-man's-land that Thackerayreferred to, in so many of his books, and to which he looked backlovingly in his later years, when, as he said, he had forgotten the roadto Prague. 

The lady remarked: "People have been more than kind to us here in NewYork. We have dined and supped out constantly, and have met withgracious kindness, such as we can never forget. But so far we have notmet a single painter, or author, or sculptor, or a man who has explored acorner of the earth. Neither have we had the good luck to find ourselvesin the same room with Tesla or Rehan, Edison or Drew. We shall regret somuch 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 havenot 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 readyour American authors as much as, if not more than, our own. The namesof dozens of your discoverers and painters are household words inEngland. When my husband planned his first tour over here my one ideawas, 'How nice it will be! Now I shall meet those delightful people ofwhom I have heard so much. ' The disappointment has been complete. Neverone have I seen. "

I could not but feel how all too true were the remarks of thisintelligent visitor, remembering how quick the society of London is towelcome a new celebrity or original character, how a place is at oncemade for him at every hospitable board, a permanent one to which he isexpected to return; and how no Continental entertainment is consideredcomplete without some bright particular star to shine in the firmament. 

"Lion-hunting, " I hear my reader say with a sneer. That may be, but itmakes society worth the candle, which it rarely is over here. I realizedwhat I had often vaguely felt before, that the Bohemia the English ladywas looking for was not to be found in this country, more's the pity. Notthat the elements are lacking. Far from it, (for even more than inLondon should we be able to combine such a society), but perhaps from amisconception of the true idea of such a society, due probably to HenryMurger's dreary book _Scenes de la vie de Boheme_ which is chargeablewith the fact that a circle of this kind evokes in the mind of mostAmericans visions of a scrubby, poorly-fed and less-washed community, aworld they would hardly dare ask to their tables for fear of someembarrassing unconventionality of conduct or dress. 

Yet that can hardly be the reason, for even in Murger or Paul de Kock, attheir worst, the hero is still a gentleman, and even when he borrows afriend'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 overthis little globe, not to have learned that the Bohemia of 1830 is ascompletely a thing of the past as a _grisette_ or a glyphisodon. Itdisappeared with Gavarni and the authors who described it. Although wehave kept the word, its meaning has gradually changed until it has cometo mean something difficult to define, a will-o'-the-wisp, which onetries vainly to grasp. With each decade it has put on a new form andchanged its centre, the one definite fact being that it combines thebetter elements of several social layers. 

Drop in, if you are in Paris and know the way, at one of MadeleineLemaire's informal evenings in her studio. There you may find the Princede Ligne, chatting with Rejane or Coquelin; or Henri d'Orleans, just backfrom an expedition into Africa. A little further on, Saint-Saens will berunning over the keys, preparing an accompaniment for one of Madame deTredern'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 choicesuppers after the play. You will find the bar, the stage, and the pulpitrepresented there, a "happy family" over which the "Prince" oftenpresides, smoking cigar after cigar, until the tardy London daylightappears to break up the entertainment. 

For both are centres where the gifted and the travelled meet the great ofthe social world, on a footing of perfect equality, and where, if anyprestige is accorded, it is that of brains. When you have seen theseplaces and a dozen others like them, you will realize what the actor'swife had in her mind. 

Now, let me whisper to you why I think such circles do not exist in thiscountry. In the first place, we are still too provincial in this bigcity of ours. New York always reminds me of a definition I once heard ofCalifornia fruit: "Very large, with no particular flavor. " We are like aboy, 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 isundigested and chaotic, while his appearance makes you expect more of himthan he can give--hence disappointment. 

Our society is yet in knickerbockers, and has retained all sorts oflittlenesses and prejudices which older civilizations have long sincerelegated to the mental lumber room. An equivalent to this point of viewyou will find in England or France only in the smaller "cathedral"cities, and even there the old aristocrats have the courage of theiropinions. 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 apractical value, are naturally at a discount. We are quite ready to payfor 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!" Andfrankly, it would be too much, would it not, to expect a family only halfa generation away from an iron foundry, or a mine, to be willing toreceive Irving or Bernhardt on terms of perfect equality?

As it would be unjust to demand a mature mind in the overgrown boy, it isuseless to hope for delicate tact and social feeling from the parvenu. Tobe gracious and at ease with all classes and professions, one must beperfectly 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" goinga long way towards destroying it. 

Of course I am generalizing and doubt not that in many cultivated homesthe right spirit exists, but unfortunately these are not the centreswhich give the tone to our "world. " Lately at one of the most splendidhouses in this city a young Italian tenor had been engaged to sing. Whenhe had finished he stood alone, unnoticed, unspoken to for the rest ofthe evening. He had been paid to sing. "What more, in common sense, could he want?" thought the "world, " without reflecting that it wasprobably not the _tenor_ who lost by that arrangement. It needs adelicate hand to hold the reins over the backs of such a fine-mouthedcommunity as artists and singers form. They rarely give their best whensinging or performing in a hostile atmosphere. 

A few years ago when a fancy-dress ball was given at the Academy ofDesign, the original idea was to have it an artists' ball; the communityof the brush were, however, approached with such a complete lack of tactthat, with hardly an exception, they held aloof, and at the ball shoneconspicuous by their absence. 

At present in this city I know of but two hospitable firesides where youare sure to meet the best the city holds of either foreign or nativetalent. The one is presided over by the wife of a young composer, andthe other, oddly enough, by two unmarried ladies. An invitation to adinner or a supper at either of these houses is as eagerly sought afterand as highly prized in the great world as it is by the Bohemians, thoughneither "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 toprove 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 almostevery phase of the Social World of Paris down to 1850 and Thackeray lefthardly a corner of London High Life unexplored; but so great have beenthe changes (progress, its admirers call it, ) since then, that, couldBalzac come back to his beloved Paris, he would feel like a foreignerthere; and Thackeray, who was among us but yesterday, would havedifficulty in finding his bearings in the sea of the London world to-day. 

We have changed so radically that even a casual observer cannot helpbeing struck by the difference. Among other most significant "phenomena"has appeared a phase of life that not only neither of these great menobserved (for the very good reason that it had not appeared in theirtime), but which seems also to have escaped the notice of the writers ofour own day, close observers as they are of any new development. I meanthe class of Social Exiles, pitiable wanderers from home and country, whohaunt 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 areshy game and not easily raised, frequenting mostly quiet old cities likeVersailles and Florence, or inexpensive watering-places where theirmeagre incomes become affluence by contrast. The first thought ondropping in on such a settlement is, "How in the world did these peopleever drift here?" It is simple enough and generally comes about in thisway:

The father of a wealthy family dies. The fortune turns out to be lessthan was expected. The widow and children decide to go abroad for a yearor so, during their period of mourning, partially for distraction, andpartially (a fact which is not spoken of) because at home they would beforced to change their way of living to a simpler one, and that is hardto do, just at first. Later they think it will be quite easy. So thefamily emigrates, and after a little sight-seeing, settles in Dresden orTours, casually at first, in a hotel. If there are young children theyare made the excuse. "The languages are so important!" Or else one ofthe daughters develops a taste for music, or a son takes up the study ofart. In a year or two, before a furnished apartment is taken, the ideaof returning is discussed, but abandoned "for the present. " They beginvaguely to realize how difficult it will be to take life up again athome. During all this time their income (like everything else when theowners are absent) has been slowly but surely disappearing, making thereturn each year more difficult. Finally, for economy, an unfurnishedapartment is taken. They send home for bits of furniture and familybelongings, and gradually drop into the great army of the expatriated. 

Oh, the pathos of it! One who has not seen these poor stranded waifs intheir self-imposed exile, with eyes turned towards their native land, cannot realize all the sadness and loneliness they endure, rarelyadopting the country of their residence but becoming more firmly Americanas the years go by. The home papers and periodicals are taken, theAmerican church attended, if there happens to be one; the English chapel, if there is not. Never a French church! In their hearts they think italmost irreverent to read the service in French. The acquaintance of afew fellow-exiles is made and that of a half-dozen English families, mothers and daughters and a younger son or two, whom the ferociousprimogeniture custom has cast out of the homes of their childhood toeconomize on the Continent. 

I have in my mind a little settlement of this kind at Versailles, whichwas a type. The formal old city, fallen from its grandeur, was asingularly appropriate setting to the little comedy. There the modestpurses of the exiles found rents within their reach, the quarters vastand airy. The galleries and the park afforded a diversion, and thenParis, dear Paris, the American Mecca, was within reach. At the time Iknew it, the colony was fairly prosperous, many of its members living inthe two or three principal _pensions_, the others in apartments of theirown. They gave feeble little entertainments among themselves, card-parties and teas, and dined about with each other at theirrespective _tables d'hote_, even knowing a stray Frenchman or two, whomthe quest of a meal had tempted out of their native fastnesses as it doesthe wolves in a hard winter. Writing and receiving letters from Americawas one of the principal occupations, and an epistle descriptive of aparticular event at home went the rounds, and was eagerly read anddiscussed. 

The merits of the different _pensions_ also formed a subject of vitalinterest. The advantages and disadvantages of these rival establishmentswere, as a topic, never exhausted. _Madame une telle_ gave five o'clocktea, included in the seven francs a day, but her rival gave one more meatcourse at dinner and her coffee was certainly better, while a thirdundoubtedly had a nicer set of people. No one here at home can realizethe importance these matters gradually assume in the eyes of the exiles. Their slender incomes have to be so carefully handled to meet the strainof even this simple way of living, if they are to show a surplus for alittle trip to the seashore in the summer months, that an extra franc aday becomes a serious consideration. 

Every now and then a family stronger-minded than the others, or withserious reasons for returning home (a daughter to bring out or a son toput into business), would break away from its somnolent surroundings andre-cross the Atlantic, alternating between hope and fear. It is herethat a sad fate awaits these modern Rip Van Winkles. They find theirnative cities changed beyond recognition. (For we move fast in thesedays. ) The mother gets out her visiting list of ten years before and isthunderstruck to find that it contains chiefly names of the "dead, thedivorced, and defaulted. " The waves of a decade have washed over herplace and the world she once belonged to knows her no more. The leadersof 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 dinnertables where before she had found only friends. After a feeble littlestruggle to get again into the "swim, " the family drifts back across theocean into the quiet back water of a continental town, and goes circlingaround 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, andare, perhaps, a little glad in their hearts of a quiet old age, away fromthe heat and sweat of the battle; but for the younger generation it isannihilation. Each year their circle grows smaller. Death takes awayone member after another of the family, until one is left alone in aforeign land with no ties around her, or with her far-away "home, " thelatter more a name now than a reality. 

A year or two ago I was taking luncheon with our consul at his primitivevilla, 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 onhis nearest neighbors, whose mode of existence seemed a source of anxietyto him. I found myself in the presence of two American ladies, theyounger being certainly not less than seventy-five. To my astonishment Ifound they had been living there some thirty years, since the death oftheir parents, in an isolation and remoteness impossible to describe, inan Arab house, with native servants, "the world forgetting, by the worldforgot. " Yet these ladies had names well known in New York fifty yearsago. 

The glimpse I had of their existence made me thoughtful as I rode home inthe twilight, across a suburb none too safe for strangers. What had thefuture in store for those two? Or, worse still, for the survivor ofthose two? In contrast, I saw a certain humble "home" far away inAmerica, where two old ladies were ending their lives surrounded byloving friends and relations, honored and cherished and guarded tenderlyfrom the rude world. 

In big cities like Paris and Rome there is another class of theexpatriated, the wealthy who have left their homes in a moment of piqueafter the failure of some social or political ambition; and who find inthese centres the recognition refused them at home and for which theirsouls thirsted. 

It is not to these I refer, although it is curious to see a group ofpeople living for years in a country of which they, half the time, do notspeak the language (beyond the necessities of housekeeping and shopping), knowing but few of its inhabitants, and seeing none of the society of theplace, their acquaintance rarely going beyond that equivocal, hybridclass that surrounds rich "strangers" and hangs on to the outer edge ofthe _grand monde_. One feels for this latter class merely contempt, butone's pity is reserved for the former. What object lessons some lives onthe Continent would be to impatient souls at home, who feel discontentedwith their surroundings, and anxious to break away and wander abroad! Letthem think twice before they cut the thousand ties it has taken alifetime to form. Better monotony at your own fireside, my friends, where at the worst, you are known and have your place, no matter howsmall, than an old age among strangers. 

No. 12--"Seven Ages" of Furniture

The progress through life of active-minded Americans is apt to be aseries of transformations. At each succeeding phase of mentaldevelopment, an old skin drops from their growing intelligence, and theyassimilate the ideas and tastes of their new condition, with a facilityand completeness unknown to other nations. 

One series of metamorphoses particularly amusing to watch is, that of anobservant, receptive daughter of Uncle Sam who, aided and followed (at adistance) by an adoring husband, gradually develops her excellent brain, and rises through fathoms of self-culture and purblind experiment, to thesurface of dilettantism and connoisseurship. One can generally detectthe exact stage of evolution such a lady has reached by the bent of herconversation, the books she is reading, and, last but not least, by hermaterial surroundings; no outward and visible signs reflecting inward andspiritual grace so clearly as the objects people collect around them forthe adornment of their rooms, or the way in which those rooms aredecorated. 

A few years ago, when a young man and his bride set up housekeeping ontheir own account, the "old people" of both families seized theopportunity to unload on the beginners (under the pretence of helpingthem along) a quantity of furniture and belongings that had (as theshopkeepers say) "ceased to please" their original owners. The narrowquarters of the tyros are encumbered by ungainly sofas and arm-chairs, most probably of carved rosewood. _Etageres_ of the same lugubriousmaterial grace the corners of their tiny drawing-room, the bits of mirrorinserted between the shelves distorting the image of the owners intoheadless or limbless phantoms. Half of their little dining-room isfilled with a black-walnut sideboard, ingeniously contrived to take up asmuch space as possible and hold nothing, its graceless top adorned with astag's head carved in wood and imitation antlers. 

The novices in their innocence live contented amid their hideoussurroundings 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. Thegrim furniture gradually disappears under a layer of silk and gauzedraperies, the bare walls blossom with paper umbrellas, fans are nailedin groups promiscuously, wherever an empty space offends her eye. Bowsof ribbon are attached to every possible protuberance of the furniture. Even the table service is not spared. I remember dining at a house inthis stage of its artistic development, where the marrow bones thatformed one course of the dinner appeared each with a coquettish littlebow-knot of pink ribbon around its neck. 

Once launched on this sea of adornment, the housewife soon loses herbearings and decorates indiscriminately. Her old evening dresses serveto drape the mantelpieces, and she passes every spare hour embroidering, braiding, or fringing some material to adorn her rooms. At Christmas herfriends contribute specimens of their handiwork to the collection. 

The view of other houses and other decorations before long introduces theworm of discontent into the blossom of our friend's contentment. Thefruit of her labors becomes tasteless on her lips. As the finances ofthe family are satisfactory, the re-arrangement of the parlor floor is(at her suggestion) confided to a firm of upholsterers, who make a cleansweep of the rosewood and the bow-knots, and retire, after some months oflabor, leaving the delighted wife in possession of a suite of roomsglittering with every monstrosity that an imaginative tradesman, spurredon by unlimited credit, could devise. 

The wood work of the doors and mantels is an intricate puzzle of inlaidwoods, the ceilings are panelled and painted in complicated designs. The"parlor" is provided with a complete set of neat, old-gold satinfurniture, puffed at its angles with peacock-colored plush. 

The monumental folding doors between the long, narrow rooms are drapedwith the same chaste combination of stuffs. 

The dining-room blazes with a gold and purple wall paper, set off byebonized wood work and furniture. The conscientious contractor hasneglected no corner. Every square inch of the ceilings, walls, andfloors has been carved, embossed, stencilled, or gilded into abewildering monotony. 

The husband, whose affairs are rapidly increasing on his hands, has notime to attend to such insignificant details as house decoration, thewife has perfect confidence in the taste of the firm employed. So at thesuggestion of the latter, and in order to complete the beauty of therooms, a Bouguereau, a Toulmouche and a couple of Schreyers are bought, and a number of modern French bronzes scattered about on the multicoloredcabinets. Then, at last, the happy owners of all this splendor opentheir doors to the admiration of their friends. 

About the time the peacock plush and the gilding begin to show signs ofwear and tear, rumors of a fresh fashion in decoration float across fromEngland, and the new gospel of the beautiful according to Clarence Cookis 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 thehusband, who has recently started out as an architect, designs them apicturesque residence without a straight line on its exterior or a squareroom inside. This house is done up in strict obedience to the teachingsof the new sect. The dining-room is made about as cheerful as theentrance to a family vault. The rest of the house bears a closeresemblance to an ecclesiastical junk shop. The entrance hall is filledwith what appears to be a communion table in solid oak, and the massivechairs and settees of the parlor suggest the withdrawing room of Rowena, aesthetic shades of momie-cloth drape deep-set windows, where anaemic anddisjointed females in stained glass pluck conventional roses. 

To each of these successive transitions the husband has remainedobediently and tranquilly indifferent. He has in his heart consideredthem all equally unfitting and uncomfortable and sighed in regretfulmemory of a deep, old-fashioned arm-chair that sheltered his after-dinnernaps in the early rosewood period. So far he has been as clay in thehands of his beloved wife, but the anaemic ladies and the communion tableare the last drop that causes his cup to overflow. He revolts and beginsto take matters into his own hands with the result that the householdenters its fifth incarnation under his guidance, during which everythingis painted white and all the wall-papers are a vivid scarlet. The familysit on bogus Chippendale and eat off blue and white china. 

With the building of their grand new house near the park the couple risetogether into the sixth cycle of their development. Having travelled andstudied the epochs by this time, they can tell a Louis XIV. From a LouisXV. Room, and recognize that mahogany and brass sphinxes denote furnitureof the Empire. This newly acquired knowledge is, however, vague andhazy. They have no confidence in themselves, so give over the fitting oftheir principal floors to the New York branch of a great French house. Little is talked of now but periods, plans, and elevations. Under theguidance of the French firm, they acquire at vast expense, fakedreproductions as historic furniture. 

The spacious rooms are sticky with new gilding, and the flowered brocadesof the hangings and furniture crackle to the touch. The rooms were notdesigned by the architect to receive any special kind of "treatment. "Immense folding-doors unite the salons, and windows open anywhere. Thedecorations of the walls have been applied like a poultice, regardless ofthe proportions of the rooms and the distribution of the spaces. 

Building and decorating are, however, the best of educations. Thehusband, freed at last from his business occupations, finds in this newstudy an interest and a charm unknown to him before. He and his wife areboth vaguely disappointed when their resplendent mansion is finished, having already outgrown it, and recognize that in spite of correctdetail, their costly apartments no more resemble the stately and simplesalons seen abroad than the cabin of a Fall River boat resembles the_Galerie des Glaces_ at Versailles. The humiliating knowledge that theyare all wrong breaks upon them, as it is doing on hundreds of others, atthe same time as the desire to know more and appreciate better theperfect 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 theirlibrary contains nothing to help them. Others possess the informationthey 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" isthe result of a woman's faultless taste collaborating with a man'stechnical knowledge. Its mission is to reveal to the hundreds who haveadvanced just far enough to find that they can go no farther alone, truths lying concealed beneath the surface. It teaches that consummatetaste is satisfied only with a perfected simplicity; that the facades ofa house must be the envelope of the rooms within and adapted to them, asthe rooms are to the habits and requirements of them "that dwelltherein;" that proportion is the backbone of the decorator's art and thatsupreme elegance is fitness and moderation; and, above all, that anattention to architectural principles can alone lead decoration to aperfect development. 

No. 13--Our Elite and Public Life

The complaint is so often heard, and seems so well founded, that there isa growing inclination, not only among men of social position, but alsoamong our best and cleverest citizens, to stand aloof from public life, and this reluctance on their part is so unfortunate, that one feelsimpelled 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 ofrepresenting one's town or locality be as eagerly sought after with us asit 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 ahigh-minded and public-spirited gentleman, who not long ago representedour country at a European court, he advanced two theories which struck meas being well worth repeating, and which seemed to account to a certainextent for this curious abstinence. 

As a first and most important cause, he placed the fact that neither ournational nor (here in New York) our state capital coincides with ourmetropolis. In this we differ from England and all the continentalcountries. The result is not difficult to perceive. In London, a man ofthe world, a business man, or a great lawyer, who represents a localityin Parliament, can fulfil his mandate and at the same time lead his usuallife among his own set. The lawyer or the business man can follow duringthe day his profession, or those affairs on which he depends to supporthis family and his position in the world. Then, after dinner (owing tothe peculiar hours adopted for the sittings of Parliament), he can takehis place as a law-maker. If he be a London-born man, he in no waychanges his way of life or that of his family. If, on the contrary, hebe a county magnate, the change he makes is all for the better, as ittakes him and his wife and daughters up to London, the haven of theirlongings, and the centre of all sorts of social dissipations andadvancement. 

With us, it is exactly the contrary. As the District of Columbia electsno one, everybody living in Washington officially is more or lessexpatriated, and the social life it offers is a poor substitute for thecircle which most families leave to go there. 

That, however, is not the most important side of the question. Go to anygreat lawyer of either New York or Chicago, and propose sending him toCongress or the Senate. His answer is sure to be, "I cannot afford it. Iknow it is an honor, but what is to replace the hundred thousand dollarsa year which my profession brings me in, not to mention that all mypractice would go to pieces during my absence?" Or again, "How should Idare to propose to my family to leave one of the great centres of thecountry 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 inParliament, if that body sat at Bristol?

Until recently the man who occupied the position of Lord Chancellor madethirty thousand pounds a year by his profession without interfering inany way with his public duties, and at the present moment a recordershipin London in no wise prevents private practice. Were these gentlemenAmericans, they would be obliged to renounce all hope of professionalincome 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 tocriticise, ) a man must reside in the place he represents. Here again wediffer from all other constitutional countries. Unfortunately, ourclever young men leave the small towns of their birth and flock up to thegreat centres as offering wider fields for their advancement. Inconsequence, the local elector finds his choice limited to what isleft--the intellectual skimmed milk, of which the cream has been carriedto New York or other big cities. No country can exist without ametropolis, and as such a centre by a natural law of assimilation absorbsthe best brains of the country, in other nations it has been found to theinterests of all parties to send down brilliant young men to the"provinces, " to be, in good time, returned by them to the nationalassemblies. 

As this is not a political article the simple indication of these twocauses will suffice, without entering into the question of theirreasonableness or of their justice. The social bearing of such acondition is here the only side of the question under discussion; it isdifficult to over-rate the influence that a man's family exert over hisdecisions. 

Political ambition is exceedingly rare among our women of position; whenthe American husband is bitten with it, the wife submits to, rather thanabets, his inclinations. In most cases our women are not cosmopolitanenough to enjoy being transplanted far away from their friends andrelations, even to fill positions of importance and honor. A New Yorkwoman of great frankness and intelligence, who found herself recently ina Western city under these circumstances, said, in answer to a flatteringremark that "the ladies of the place expected her to become their socialleader, " "I don't see anything to lead, " thus very plainly expressing heropinion of the situation. It is hardly fair to expect a woman accustomedto the life of New York or the foreign capitals, to look forward withenthusiasm 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 adifferent route. The aristocracy detest the present government, and itis not considered "good form" by them to sit in the Chamber of Deputiesor to accept any but diplomatic positions. They condescend to fill thelatter because that entails living away from their own country, as theyfeel more at ease in foreign courts than at the Republican receptions ofthe Elysee. 

There is a deplorable tendency among our self-styled aristocracy to lookupon their circle as a class apart. They separate themselves more eachyear from the life of the country, and affect to smile at any of theirnumber who honestly wish to be of service to the nation. They, like theFrench aristocracy, are perfectly willing, even anxious, to fillagreeable diplomatic posts at first-class foreign capitals, and arenaively astonished when their offers of service are not accepted withgratitude by the authorities in Washington. But let a husband propose tohis 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 cultivatedpeople, 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 whichnothing can be more childish or more imbecile. Any observer who haslived in the different grades of society will quickly renounce thepuerile idea that sporting or intellectual pursuits are alone worthy of agentleman's attention. This very political life, which appears unworthyof their attention to so many men, is, in reality, the great field wherethe nations of the world fight out their differences, where the seed issown that will ripen later into vast crops of truth and justice. It is(if rightly regarded and honestly followed) the battle-ground where man'shighest qualities are put to their noblest use--that of working for thehappiness of others. 

No. 14--The Small Summer Hotel

We certainly are the most eccentric race on the surface of the globe andought to be a delight to the soul of an explorer, so full is ourcivilization of contradictions, unexplained habits and curious customs. It is quite unnecessary for the inquisitive gentlemen who pass their timeprying into other people's affairs and then returning home to write booksabout their discoveries, to risk their lives and digestions in longjourneys into Central Africa or to the frozen zones, while so much goodmaterial 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 penetratingCentral Asia or visiting the man-eating tribes of Australia. 

Perhaps one of our scientific celebrities, before undertaking his nextlong voyage, will find time to make observations at home and collectsufficient data to answer some questions that have long puzzled myunscientific brain. He would be doing good work. Fame and honors awaitthe man who can explain why, for instance, sane Americans of the betterclass, with money enough to choose their surroundings, should pass somuch of their time in hotels and boarding houses. There must be a reasonfor the vogue of these retreats--every action has a cause, howeverremote. I shall await with the deepest interest a paper on this subjectfrom one of our great explorers, untoward circumstances having some timeago forced me to pass a few days in a popular establishment of thisclass. 

During my visit I amused myself by observing the inmates and trying todiscover why they had come there. So far as I could find out, thegreater part of them belonged to our well-to-do class, and when at homedoubtless lived in luxurious houses and were waited on by trainedservants. In the small summer hotel where I met them, they were livingin dreary little ten by twelve foot rooms, containing only the absolutenecessities of existence, a wash-stand, a bureau, two chairs and a bed. And such a bed! One mattress about four inches thick over squeakingslats, cotton sheets, so nicely calculated to the size of the bed thatthe slightest move on the part of the sleeper would detach them fromtheir moorings and undo the housemaid's work; two limp, discouragedpillows that had evidently been "banting, " and a few towels a foot longwith a surface like sand-paper, completed the fittings of the room. Bathswere unknown, and hot water was a luxury distributed sparingly by acapricious handmaiden. It is only fair to add that everything in theroom was perfectly clean, as was the coarse table linen in the diningroom. 

The meals were in harmony with the rooms and furniture, consisting onlyof the strict necessities, cooked with a Spartan disregard for suchsybarite foibles as seasoning or dressing. I believe there was asubstantial meal somewhere in the early morning hours, but I neversucceeded 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 cupof coffee to my room. The first morning it appeared already poured outin the cup, with sugar and cold milk added at her discretion. At oneo'clock a dinner was served, consisting of soup (occasionally), one meatdish and attendant vegetables, a meagre dessert, and nothing else. Athalf-past six there was an equally rudimentary meal, called "tea, " afterwhich no further food was distributed to the inmates, who all, however, seemed perfectly contented with this arrangement. In fact theyapparently looked on the act of eating as a disagreeable task, to behurried through as soon as possible that they might return to theiraimless rocking and chattering. 

Instead of dinner hour being the feature of the day, uniting peoplearound an attractive table, and attended by conversation, and the meallasting long enough for one's food to be properly eaten, it was rushedthrough as though we were all trying to catch a train. Then, when themeal was over, the boarders relapsed into apathy again. 

No one ever called this hospitable home a boarding-house, for theproprietor was furious if it was given that name. He also scorned theidea of keeping a hotel. So that I never quite understood in whatrelation he stood toward us. He certainly considered himself our host, and ignored the financial side of the question severely. In order not tohurt his feelings by speaking to him of money, we were obliged to get ourbills by strategy from a male subordinate. Mine host and his family wereapparently unaware that there were people under their roof who paid themfor 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 gracefulveiling 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 houseran itself, or was run by incompetent Irish and negro "help. " There wereno bells in the rooms, which simplified the service, and nothing could beordered out of meal hours. 

The material defects in board and lodging sink, however, intoinsignificance before the moral and social unpleasantness of anestablishment such as this. All ages, all conditions, and all creeds arepromiscuously huddled together. It is impossible to choose whom oneshall know or whom avoid. A horrible burlesque of family life isenabled, with all its inconveniences and none of its sanctity. Peoplefrom different cities, with different interests and standards, areexpected to "chum" together in an intimacy that begins with the eighto'clock breakfast and ends only when all retire for the night. Noprivacy, no isolation is allowed. If you take a book and begin to readin a remote corner of a parlor or piazza, some idle matron or idioticgirl will tranquilly invade your poor little bit of privacy and gabble ofher affairs and the day's gossip. There is no escape unless you mount toyour ten-by-twelve cell and sit (like the Premiers of England when theyvisit Balmoral) on the bed, to do your writing, for want of any otherconveniences. Even such retirement is resented by the boarders. You arethought to be haughty and to give yourself airs if you do not sit fortwelve consecutive hours each day in unending conversation with them. 

When one reflects that thousands of our countrymen pass at least one-halfof their lives in these asylums, and that thousands more in America knowno other homes, but move from one hotel to another, while the same outlaywould procure them cosy, cheerful dwellings, it does seem as if thesemodern Arabs, Holmes's "Folding Bed-ouins, " were gradually returning toprehistoric habits and would end by eating roots promiscuously in caves. 

The contradiction appears more marked the longer one reflects on the loveof independence and impatience of all restraint that characterize ourrace. If such an institution had been conceived by people of the OldWorld, accustomed to moral slavery and to a thousand petty tyrannies, itwould 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 theSpanish Inquisitors, is indeed inexplicable! Outside of this happy landthe institution is unknown. The _pension_ when it exists abroad, is onlyan exotic growth for an American market. Among European nations it isundreamed of; the poorest when they travel take furnished rooms, wherethey are served in private, or go to restaurants or _table d'hotes_ fortheir meals. In a strictly continental hotel the public parlor does notexist. People do not travel to make acquaintances, but for health orrecreation, or to improve their minds. The enforced intimacy of ourAmerican family house, with its attendant quarrelling and back-biting, isan infliction of which Europeans are in happy ignorance. 

One explanation, only, occurs to me, which is that among New Englandpeople, largely descended from Puritan stock, there still lingers someblind impulse at self-mortification, an hereditary inclination to makethis life as disagreeable as possible by self-immolation. Theirancestors, we are told by Macaulay, suppressed bull baiting, not becauseit hurt the bull, but because it gave pleasure to the people. Here inNew England they refused the Roman dogma of Purgatory and then withcomplete inconsistency, invented the boarding-house, in order, doubtless, to take as much of the joy as possible out of this life, as a preparationfor endless bliss in the next. 

No. 15--A False Start

Having had, during a wandering existence, many opportunities of observingmy compatriots away from home and familiar surroundings in variouscircles of cosmopolitan society, at foreign courts, in diplomatic life, or unofficial capacities, I am forced to acknowledge that whereas mycountrywoman 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" tactand wit, as I have been accused of being "hard" on American women, andsome half-humorous criticisms have been taken seriously byover-susceptible women--doubtless troubled with guilty consciences fornothing is more exact than the old French proverb, "It is only the truththat wounds. "

The fact remains clear, however, that American men, as regards polish, facility in expressing themselves in foreign languages, the arts ofpleasing and entertaining, in short, the thousand and one nothingscomposing that agreeable whole, a cultivated member of society, areinferior to their womankind. I feel sure that all Americans who havetravelled and have seen their compatriot in his social relations withforeigners, 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 thisthat convinces me we have made a false start as regards the education andambitions of our young men. 

To find the reasons one has only to glance back at our past. After thestruggle that insured our existence as a united nation, came a period ofgreat prosperity. When both seemed secure, we did not pause and takebreath, as it were, before entering a new epoch of development, butdashed 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, faraway from the centres of cultivation and art, surrounded only by lesssuccessful states with which to compare ourselves, has led us intoforming erroneous ideas as to the proportions of things, causing us toexaggerate the value of material prosperity and undervalue matters ofinfinitely greater importance, which have been neglected in consequence. 

A man who, after fighting through our late war, had succeeded in amassinga fortune, naturally wished his son to follow him on the only road inwhich it had ever occurred to him that success was of any importance. Sobeyond giving the boy a college education, which he had not enjoyed, hisambition rarely went; his idea being to make a practical business man ofhim, or a lawyer, that he could keep the estate together moreintelligently. In thousands of cases, of course, individual taste andbent over-ruled this influence, and a career of science or art waschosen; but in the mass of the American people, it was firmly implantedthat the pursuit of wealth was the only occupation to which a reasonablehuman being could devote himself. A young man who was not in some wayengaged in increasing his income was looked upon as a very undesirablemember of society, and sure, sooner or later, to come to harm. 

Millionaires declined to send their sons to college, saying they wouldget ideas there that would unfit them for business, to Paterfamilias theone object of life. Under such fostering influences, the ambitions inour country have gradually given way to money standards and the falsestart has been made! Leaving aside at once the question of money in itsrelation to our politics (although it would be a fruitful subject formoralizing), 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 empireis the mainspring which keeps the great machine in movement. And onesees tens of thousands of well-born and delicately-bred men cheerfullyentering the many branches of public service where the hope of wealth cannever come, and retiring on pensions or half-pay in the strength of theirmiddle age, apparently without a regret or a thought beyond theircountry's well-being. 

In France, where the passionate love of their own land has made colonialextension impossible, the modern Frenchman of education is moreinterested in the yearly exhibition at the _Salon_ or in a successfulplay at the _Francais_, than in the stock markets of the world. 

Would that our young men had either of these bents! They have copiedfrom England a certain love of sport, without the English climate or thecalm of country and garrison life, to make these sports logical andnecessary. As the young American millionaire thinks he must go onincreasing his fortune, we see the anomaly of a man working through asummer's day in Wall Street, then dashing in a train to some suburbanclub, 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 sointo our college life that the number of students in the freshman classof our great universities is seriously influenced by that institution'slosses or gains at football. 

What is the result of all this? A young man starts in life with the firmintention of making a great deal of money. If he has any time left fromthat occupation he will devote it to sport. Later in life, when he hasleisure and travels, or is otherwise thrown with cultivated strangers, hemust naturally be at a disadvantage. "Shop, " he cannot talk; he knowsthat is vulgar. Music, art, the drama, and literature are closed booksto him, in spite of the fact that he may have a box on the grand tier atthe opera and a couple of dozen high-priced "masterpieces" hanging aroundhis drawing-rooms. If he is of a finer clay than the general run of hisclass, he will realize dimly that somehow the goal has been missed in hislife race. His chase after the material has left him so little time tocultivate the ideal, that he has prepared himself a sad and aimless oldage; unless he can find pleasure in doing as did a man I have been toldabout, who, receiving half a dozen millions from his father's estate, conceived the noble idea of increasing them so that he might leave toeach of his four children as much as he had himself received. With thestrictest economy, and by suppressing out of his life and that of hischildren all amusements and superfluous outlay, he has succeeded now formany years in living on the income of his income. Time will never hangheavy on this Harpagon's hands. He is a perfectly happy individual, buthis conversation is hardly of a kind to attract, and it may be doubted ifthe rest of the family are as much to be envied. 

An artist who had lived many years of his life in Paris and London wasspeaking the other day of a curious phase he had remarked in our Americanlife. 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 hehas been in New York not one of the many men he knows has ever passed anhour in his rooms. Is not that a significant fact? Another remark whichpoints its own moral was repeated to me recently. A foreigner visitinghere, to whom American friends were showing the sights of our city, exclaimed at last: "You have not pointed out to me any celebrities exceptmillionaires. 'Do you see that man? he is worth ten millions. Look atthat house! it cost one million dollars, and there are pictures in itworth over three million dollars. That trotter cost one hundred thousanddollars, ' etc. " Was he not right? And does it not give my reader ashudder to see in black and white the phrases that are, nevertheless, sooften on our lips?

This levelling of everything to its cash value is so ingrained in us thatwe are unconscious of it, as we are of using slang or local expressionsuntil our attention is called to them. I was present once at a farceplayed in a London theatre, where the audience went into roars oflaughter every time the stage American said, "Why, certainly. " I wasindignant, and began explaining to my English friend that we never usedsuch an absurd phrase. "Are you sure?" he asked. "Why, certainly, " Isaid, and stopped, catching the twinkle in his eye. 

It is very much the same thing with money. We do not notice how often itslips into the conversation. "Out of the fullness of the heart the mouthspeaketh. " 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 allinterest if you say he can't sell them at all. As if that had anythingto do with it!

Remembering the well-known anecdote of Schopenhauer and the gold piecewhich he used to put beside his plate at the _table d'hote_, where heate, surrounded by the young officers of the German army, and which wasto be given to the poor the first time he heard any conversation that wasnot about promotion or women, I have been tempted to try the experimentin our clubs, changing the subjects to stocks and sport, and feelconfident that my contributions to charity would not ruin me. 

All this has had the result of making our men dull companions; afterdinner, or at a country house, if the subject they love is tabooed, theytalk of nothing! It is sad for a rich man (unless his mind has remainedentirely between the leaves of his ledger) to realize that money reallybuys very little, and above a certain amount can give no satisfaction inproportion to its bulk, beyond that delight which comes from a sense ofpossession. Croesus often discovers as he grows old that he hasneglected to provide himself with the only thing that "is a joy forever"--a cultivated intellect--in order to amass a fortune that turns toashes, when he has time to ask of it any of the pleasures and resourceshe fondly imagined it would afford him. Like Talleyrand's young man whowould not learn whist, he finds that he has prepared for himself adreadful old age!

No. 16--A Holy Land

Not long ago an article came under my notice descriptive of theneighborhood around Grant's tomb and the calm that midsummer brings tothat vicinity, laughingly referred to as the "Holy Land. "

As careless fingers wandering over the strings of a violin mayunintentionally strike a chord, so the writer of those lines, allunconsciously, with a jest, set vibrating a world of tender memories andassociations; for the region spoken of is truly a holy land to me, theplayground of my youth, and connected with the sweetest ties that canbind 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, " whichages ago disappeared beneath the waves. The peasants still point out ata certain place on the coast the site of the fabled city, and thefishermen tell how during great storms they have caught glimpses of itsbelfries and ramparts far down between the waves; and assert that on calmsummer nights they can hear the bells chiming up from those depths. Ialso have a vanished "Is" in my heart, and as I grow older, I love tolisten to the murmurs that float up from the past. They seem to comefrom an infinite distance, almost like echoes from another life. 

At that enchanted time we lived during the summers in an old wooden housemy father had re-arranged into a fairly comfortable dwelling. Atradition, which no one had ever taken the trouble to verify, averredthat Washington had once lived there, which made that hero very real tous. The picturesque old house stood high on a slope where the land risesboldly; with an admirable view of distant mountain, river and opposingPalisades. 

The new Riverside drive (which, by the bye, should make us very lenienttoward the men who robbed our city a score of years ago, for they left usthat vast work in atonement), has so changed the neighborhood it isimpossible now for pious feet to make a pilgrimage to those childishshrines. One house, however, still stands as when it was our nearestneighbor. It had sheltered General Gage, land for many acres around hadbelonged to him. He was an enthusiastic gardener, and imported, among ahundred other fruits and plants, the "Queen Claude" plum from France, which was successfully acclimated on his farm. In New York a plum ofthat kind is still called a "green gage. " The house has changed handsmany times since we used to play around the Grecian pillars of itsportico. A recent owner, dissatisfied doubtless with its classicsimplicity, has painted it a cheerful mustard color and crowned it with afine new _Mansard_ roof. Thus disfigured, and shorn of its surroundingtrees, the poor old house stands blankly by the roadside, reminding oneof the Greek statue in Anstey's "Painted Venus" after the London barberhad decorated her to his taste. When driving by there now, I close myeyes. 

Another house, where we used to be taken to play, was that of Audubon, inthe park of that name. Many a rainy afternoon I have passed with hischildren choosing our favorite birds in the glass cases that filled everynook and corner of the tumble-down old place, or turning over the leavesof the enormous volumes he would so graciously take down from theirplaces 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 theglowing colored plates in which the old ornithologist took such pride. There is something infinitely sad in the idea of a collection of booksslowly gathered together at the price of privations and sacrifices, cherished, fondled, lovingly read, and then at the owner's death, coldlysent away to stand for ever unopened on the shelves of some publiclibrary. It is like neglecting poor dumb children!

An event that made a profound impression on my childish imaginationoccurred while my father, who was never tired of improving our littledomain, was cutting a pathway down the steep side of the slope to theriver. A great slab, dislodged by a workman's pick, fell disclosing thegrave of an Indian chief. In a low archway or shallow cave sat theskeleton of the chieftain, his bows and arrows arranged around him on theground, mingled with fragments of an elaborate costume, of which littleremained but the bead-work. That it was the tomb of a man great amonghis people was evident from the care with which the grave had beenprepared and then hidden, proving how, hundreds of years before ourcivilization, another race had chosen this noble cliff and stately riverlandscape 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 theworld, many drawings were made and casts taken, and finally the wholething was removed to the rooms of the Historical Society. From that daythe lonely little path held an awful charm for us. Our childish readingsof Cooper had developed in us that love of the Indian and his wild life, so characteristic of boyhood thirty years ago. On still summerafternoons, the place had a primeval calm that froze the young blood inour veins. Although we prided ourselves on our quality as "braves, " andsecretly pined to be led on the war-path, we were shy of walking in thatvicinity in daylight, and no power on earth, not even the offer of thetomahawk or snow-shoes for which our souls longed, would have taken usthere at night. 

A place connected in my memory with a tragic association was across theriver on the last southern slope of the Palisades. Here we stoodbreathless while my father told the brief story of the duel between Burrand 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 spotwhere Hamilton had expired, but of later years I have been unable to findany trace of the place. The tide of immigration has brought so deep adeposit of "saloons" and suburban "balls" that the very face of the landis changed, old lovers of that shore know it no more. Never were theenvirons of a city so wantonly and recklessly degraded. Municipalitieshave vied with millionaires in soiling and debasing the exquisite shoresof 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 ofits many defacements. The river whispers of boyish boating parties, andthe woods recall a thousand childish hopes and fears, resolute departuresto join the pirates, or the red men in their strongholds--journeys boldlycarried out until twilight cooled our courage and the supper-hour proveda stronger temptation than war and carnage. 

When I sat down this summer evening to write a few lines about happy dayson the banks of the Hudson, I hardly realized how sweet those memorieswere to me. The rewriting of the old names has evoked from their longsleep 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 thanto the living. The bells of my lost "Is" are ringing clear in thesilence. 

No. 17--Royalty At Play

Few more amusing sights are to be seen in these days, than that ofcrowned heads running away from their dull old courts and functions, roughing it in hotels and villas, gambling, yachting and playing at beingrich nobodies. With much intelligence they have all chosen the sameRepublican playground, where visits cannot possibly be twisted intomeaning any new "combination" or political move, thus assuring themselvesthe freedom from care or responsibility, that seems to be the aim oftheir existence. Alongside of well-to-do Royalties in good payingsituations, are those out of a job, who are looking about for a "place. "One cannot take an afternoon's ramble anywhere between Cannes and Mentonewithout meeting a half-dozen of these magnates. 

The other day, in one short walk, I ran across three Empresses, twoQueens, and an Heir-apparent, and then fled to my hotel, fearing to beunfitted for America, if I went on "keeping such company. " They areknowing enough, these wandering great ones, and after trying many placeshave hit on this charming coast as offering more than any other for theircomfort and enjoyment. The vogue of these sunny shores dates from theirannexation to France, --a price Victor Emmanuel reluctantly paid forFrench help in his war with Austria. Napoleon III. 's demand for Savoyand this littoral, was first made known to Victor Emmanuel at a stateball at Genoa. Savoy was his birthplace and his home! The King brokeinto a wild temper, cursing the French Emperor and making insultingallusions to his parentage, saying he had not one drop of Bonaparte bloodin his veins. The King's frightened courtiers tried to stop thisoutburst, showing him the French Ambassador at his elbow. With asuperhuman effort Victor Emmanuel controlled himself, and turning to theAmbassador, said:

"I fear my tongue ran away with me!" With a smile and a bow the greatFrench diplomatist remarked:

"_Sire_, I am so deaf I have not heard a word your Majesty has beensaying!"

The fashion of coming to the Riviera for health or for amusement, datesfrom the sixties, when the Empress of Russia passed a winter at Nice, asa last attempt to prolong the existence of the dying Tsarewitsch, herson. There also the next season the Duke of Edinburgh wooed and won herdaughter (then the greatest heiress in Europe) for his bride. The worldmoves fast and a journey it required a matter of life and death to decideon, then, is gayly undertaken now, that a prince may race a yacht, or aprincess try her luck at the gambling tables. When one reflects that the"royal caste, " in Europe alone, numbers some eight hundred people, andthat the East is beginning to send out its more enterprising crownedheads to get a taste of the fun, that beyond drawing their salaries, these good people have absolutely nothing to do, except to amusethemselves, it is no wonder that this happy land is crowded with royalpleasure-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 dayshe arrives, as her carriages pass surrounded by French cavalry, one cancatch a glimpse of her big face, and dowdy little figure, whichnevertheless she can make so dignified when occasion requires. The stayhere is, indeed, a holiday for this record-breaking sovereign, whopotters about her private grounds of a morning in a donkey-chair, sunningherself and watching her Battenberg grandchildren at play. In theafternoon, she drives a couple of hours--in an open carriage--oneoutrider in black livery alone distinguishing her turnout from theothers. 

The Prince of Wales makes his headquarters at Cannes where he has poorluck in sailing the Brittania, for which he consoles himself with jollydinners at Monte Carlo. You can see him almost any evening in the_Restaurant de Paris_, surrounded by his own particular set, --the Duchessof Devonshire (who started a penniless German officer's daughter, andbecame twice a duchess); Lady de Grey and Lady Wolverton, both showingnear six feet of slender English beauty; at their side, and lovelier thaneither, the Countess of Essex. The husbands of these "Merry Wives" areabsent, but do not seem to be missed, as the ladies sit smoking andlaughing over their coffee, the party only breaking up towards eleveno'clock to try its luck at _trente et quarante_, until a "special" takesthem back to Cannes. 

He is getting sadly old and fat, is England's heir, the likeness to hismamma becoming more marked each year. His voice, too, is oddly likehers, deep and guttural, more adapted to the paternal German (which allthis family speak when alone) than to his native English. Hair, he hasnone, except a little fringe across the back of his head, just above afine large roll of fat that blushes above his shirt-collar. Too bad thatthis discovery of the microbe of baldness comes rather late for him! Hehas 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 andEmpress of Austria, who tramp about the hilly roads, the King and Queenof Saxony and the fat Arch-duchess Stephanie. Austria's Empress lookssadly changed and ill, as does another lady of whom one can occasionallycatch a glimpse, walking painfully with a crutch-stick in the shadow ofthe 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 theTuileries dictated the fashions of the world! Few have paid so dearlyfor their brief hour of splendor!

Cannes with its excellent harbor is the centre of interest during theracing season when the Tsarewitsch comes on his yacht Czaritza. At theBattle of Flowers, one is pretty sure to see the Duke of Cambridge, hisImperial Highness, the Grand Duke Michael, Prince Christian of Denmark, H. R. H. The Duke of Nassau, H. I. H. The Archduke Ferdinand d'Este, theirSerene Highnesses of Mecklenburg-Schwerin and the Saxe-Coburg-Gothas, also H. I. H. Marie Valerie and the Schleswig-Holsteins, pelting each otherand the public with _confetti_ and flowers. Indeed, half the _Almanachde Gotha_, that continental "society list, " seems to be sunning itselfhere and forgetting its cares, on bicycles or on board yachts. It issaid that the Crown Princess of Honolulu (whoever she may be) honorsMentone with her presence, and the newly deposed Queen "Ranavalo" ofMadagascar is _en route_ to join in the fun. 

This crowd of royalty reminds me of a story the old sea-dogs who gatherabout the "Admirals' corner" of the Metropolitan Club in Washington, loveto tell you. An American cockswain, dazzled by a doubly royal visit, with attending suites, on board the old "Constitution, " came up to hiscommanding officer and touching his cap, said:

"Beg pardon, Admiral, but one of them kings has tumbled down the gangwayand 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 lonelyyears of her wedded life and bore her many children, in one bed-room atVersailles--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 sharplookout that the Radicals at home do not unduly cut down their civillists, these great ones have little but their amusements to occupy them. Do they ever reflect, as they rush about visiting each other andsquabbling over precedence when they meet, that some fine morning the tax-payers may wake up, and ask each other why they are being crushed undersuch heavy loads, that eight hundred or more quite useless people maypass their lives in foreign watering-places, away from their homes andtheir duties? It will be a bad day for them when the long-sufferingsubjects say to them, "Since we get on so exceedingly well during yourmany visits abroad, we think we will try how it will work without you atall!"

The Prince of little Monaco seems to be about the only one up to thesituation, for he at least stays at home, and in connection with twoother gentlemen runs an exceedingly good hotel and several restaurants onhis estates, doing all he can to attract money into the place, whilemaking the strictest laws to prevent his subjects gambling at the famoustables. Now if other royalties instead of amusing themselves all theyear round would go in for something practical like this, they mightbecome useful members of the community. This idea of Monaco's Princestrikes one as most timely, and as opening a career for other indigentcrowned heads. Hotels are getting so good and so numerous, that withoutsome especial "attraction" a new one can hardly succeed; but a"Hohenzollern House" well situated in Berlin, with William II. To receivethe tourists at the door, and his fat wife at the desk, would be sure toprosper. It certainly would be pleasanter for him to spend money sohonestly earned than the millions wrested from half-starving peasantswhich form his present income. Besides there is almost as much gold laceon a hotel employee's livery as on a court costume!

The numerous crowned heads one meets wandering about, can hardly lullthemselves over their "games" with the flattering unction that they areof use, for, have they not France before them (which they find so much totheir taste) stronger, richer, more respected than ever since she shookherself free of such incumbrances? Not to mention our own democraticcountry, which has managed to hold its own, in spite of their manygleeful predictions to the contrary. 

No. 18--A Rock Ahead

Having had occasion several times during this past season, to pass by thelarger stores in the vicinity of Twenty-third Street, I have been struckmore than ever, by the endless flow of womankind that beats against thedoors of those establishments. If they were temples where a beneficentdeity was distributing health, learning, and all the good things ofexistence, the rush could hardly have been greater. It saddened me torealize that each of the eager women I saw was, on the contrary, dispensing something of her strength and brain, as well as the wearilyearned stipend of the men of her family (if not her own), for what couldbe of little profit to her. 

It occurred to me that, if the people who are so quick to talk about theelevating and refining influences of women, could take an hour or two andinspect the centres in question, they might not be so firm in theirbeliefs. For, reluctant as I am to acknowledge it, the one greatmisfortune in this country, is the unnatural position which has been(from some mistaken idea of chivalry) accorded to women here. The resultof placing them on this pedestal, and treating them as things apart, hasbeen to make women in America poorer helpmeets to their husbands than inany other country on the face of the globe, civilized or uncivilized. 

Strange as it may appear, this is not confined to the rich, but permeatesall classes, becoming more harmful in descending the social scale, and itwill bring about a disintegration of our society, sooner than could bebelieved. The saying on which we have all been brought up, viz. , thatyou can gauge the point of civilization attained in a nation by theposition it accords to woman, was quite true as long as woman wasconsidered man's inferior. To make her his equal was perfectly just; allthe trouble begins when you attempt to make her man's superior, asomething apart from his working life, and not the companion of histroubles and cares, as she was intended to be. 

When a small shopkeeper in Europe marries, the next day you will see hisyoung wife taking her place at the desk in his shop. While he serves hiscustomers, his smiling spouse keeps the books, makes change, and has aneye on the employees. At noon they dine together; in the evening, afterthe shop is closed, are pleased or saddened together over the results ofthe day. The wife's _dot_ almost always goes into the business, so thatthere is a community of interest to unite them, and their lives arepassed together. In this country, what happens? The husband places hisnew wife in a small house, or in two or three furnished rooms, generallyso far away that all idea of dining with her is impossible. Inconsequence, he has a "quick lunch" down town, and does not see his wifebetween eight o'clock in the morning and seven in the evening. Hisbusiness is a closed book to her, in which she can have no interest, forher weary husband naturally revolts from talking "shop, " even if she isin a position to understand him. 

His false sense of shielding her from the rude world makes him keep histroubles to himself, so she rarely knows his financial position and sulksover his "meanness" to her, in regard to pin-money; and being a perfectlyidle person, her days are apt to be passed in a way especially devised bySatan 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 victimto the allurements of the bargain-counter; returning home after hours ofaimless wandering, irritable and aggrieved because she cannot own thebeautiful things she has seen. She passes the evening in trying to winher husband's consent to some purchase he knows he cannot afford, whileit breaks his heart to refuse her--some object, which, were she reallyhis companion, she would not have had the time to see or the folly to askfor. 

The janitor in our building is truly a toiler. He rarely leaves hisdismal quarters under the sidewalk, but "Madam" walks the streets clad insealskin and silk, a "Gainsborough" crowning her false "bang. " I alwaysthink of Max O'Rell's clever saying, when I see her: "The sweat of theAmerican husband crystallizes into diamond ear-rings for the Americanwoman. " My janitress sports a diminutive pair of those jewels and hashopes of larger ones! Instead of "doing" the bachelor's rooms in thebuilding 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 andflows on Twenty-third Street--a discontented woman placed in a falseposition 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 wearybreadwinner? Not at all. He walks from his home to the "elevated. " Thecarriage is to take his wife to teas or the park. In a year or two shewill go abroad, leaving him alone to turn the crank that produces theincome. As it is, she always leaves him for six months each year in ahalf-closed house, to the tender mercies of a caretaker. Two additionalwords could be advantageously added to the wedding service. After "forricher for poorer, " I should like to hear a bride promise to cling to herhusband "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. Thehusband, who has been in Wall Street all day, knows that he must be thereagain 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 becomingamusing. What a happy, united pair they are as the footman closes thedoor and the carriage rolls off home! Who is to blame? The husband isvainly trying to lead the most exacting of double lives, that of abusiness man all day and a society man all night. You can pick him outat a glance in a ballroom. His eye shows you that there is no rest forhim, for he has placed his wife at the head of an establishment whoseworking crushes him into the mud of care and anxiety. Has he any one toblame but himself?

In England, I am told, the man of a family goes up to London in thespring 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 newgown or two: if not, she "turns" the old ones and rejoices vicariously inthe splendor of her "lord. " I know one charming little home over there, where the ladies cannot afford a pony-carriage, because the threeindispensable hunters eat up the where-withal. 

Thackeray was delighted to find one household (Major Ponto's) where thegoverness ruled supreme, and I feel a fiendish pleasure in these accountsof a country where men have been able to maintain some rights, and ammoved to preach a crusade for the liberation of the American husband, that the poor, down-trodden creature may revolt from the slavery where heis held and once more claim his birthright. If he be prompt to act (andis successful) he may work such a reform that our girls, on marrying, mayfeel 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 bepitied by her friends as a model of abnegation, because she has decidedto remain in town during the summer to keep her husband company and makehis weary home-coming brighter. Or where (as in a story recently heard)a foreigner on being presented to an American bride abroad and asking forher husband, could hear in answer: "Oh, he could not come; he was toobusy. 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. InLondon and with us in New York it dwindles off without any specialfinish, but in Paris it closes like a trap-door, or the curtain on thelast scene of a pantomime, while the lights are blazing and the orchestrais banging its loudest. The _Grand Prix_, which takes place on thesecond Sunday in June, is the climax of the spring gayeties. Up to thatdate, the social pace has been getting faster and faster, like the finishof the big race itself, and fortunately for the lives of the women aswell as the horses, ends as suddenly. 

In 1897, the last steeple chase at Auteuil, which precedes the _GrandPrix_ 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 publicalready in connection with the life and death of young Lebaudy. Thisyouth having had the misfortune to inherit an enormous fortune, whilestill a mere boy, plunged into the wildest dissipation, and became theprey of a band of sharpers and blacklegs. Mlle. Marie Louise Marsyappears to have been the one person who had a sincere affection for theunfortunate youth. When his health gave way during his military service, she threw over her engagement with the _Francais_, and nursed her loveruntil his death--a devotion rewarded by the gift of a million. 

At the present moment, four or five of the band of self-styled noblemenwho traded on the boy's inexperience and generosity, are serving outterms in the state prisons for blackmailing, and the _Theatre Francais_possesses the anomaly of a young and beautiful actress, who runs a racingstable in her own name. 

The _Grand Prix_ dates from the reign of Napoleon III. , who, at thesuggestion of the great railway companies, inaugurated this race in 1862, in imitation of the English Derby, as a means of attracting people toParis. The city and the railways each give half of the forty-thousand-dollar prize. It is the great official race of the year. The Presidentoccupies the central pavilion, surrounded by the members of the cabinetand the diplomatic corps. On the tribunes and lawn can be seen the _ToutParis_--all the celebrities of the great and half-world who play such animportant part in the life of France's capital. The whole colony of the_Rastaquoueres_, is sure to be there, "_Rastas_, " as they are familiarlycalled by the Parisians, who make little if any distinction in theirminds between a South American (blazing in diamonds and vulgar clothes)and our own select (?) colony. Apropos of this inability of theEuropeans to appreciate our fine social distinctions, I have been told ofa well-born New Yorker who took a French noblewoman rather to task forreceiving 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 Americanskept hotels. "

For the _Grand Prix_, every woman not absolutely bankrupt has a newcostume, her one idea being a _creation_ that will attract attention andeclipse her rivals. The dressmakers have had a busy time of it for weeksbefore. 

Every horse that can stand up is pressed into service for the day. Fortwenty-four hours before, the whole city is _en fete_, and Paris _enfete_ is always a sight worth seeing. The natural gayety of theParisians, a characteristic noticed (if we are to believe the historians)as far back as the conquest of Gaul by Julius Caesar, breaks out in allits amusing spontaneity. If the day is fine, the entire population givesitself up to amusement. From early morning the current sets towards thecharming corner of the Bois where the Longchamps race-course lies, picturesquely encircled by the Seine (alive with a thousand boats), andbacked by the woody slopes of Suresnes and St. Cloud. By noon everycorner and vantage point of the landscape is seized upon, when, with ablare of trumpets and the rattle of cavalry, the President arrives in histurnout _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 yearsEugenie used to sit in state, and which has sheltered so many crownedheads under its simple roof. Faure's arrival is the signal for theracing to begin, from that moment the interest goes on increasing untilthe great "event. " Then in an instant the vast throng of human beingsbreaks up and flows homeward across the Bois, filling the big Placearound the Arc de Triomphe, rolling down the Champs Elysees, in twentyparallel 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 theopen-air concerts and theatres are packed, and every little squareorganizes its impromptu ball, the musicians mounted on tables, and thecrowd 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 onlylong lines of closed windows. The approaches to the railway stations areblocked with cabs piled with trunks and bicycles. The "great world" isfleeing to the seashore or its _chateaux_, and Paris will know it no moreuntil January, for the French are a country-loving race, and since therehas been no court, the aristocracy pass longer and longer periods ontheir own estates each year, partly from choice and largely to show theirdisdain for the republic and its entertainments. 

The shady drives in the park, which only a day or two ago were sobrilliant with smart traps and spring toilets, are become a coolwilderness, where will meet, perhaps, a few maiden ladies exercising fatdogs, uninterrupted except by the watering-cart or by a few straytourists in cabs. Now comes a delightful time for the real amateur ofParis and the country around, which is full of charming corners where onecan dine at quiet little restaurants, overhanging the water or buriedamong trees. You are sure of getting the best of attention from thewaiters, and the dishes you order receive all the cook's attention. Ofan evening the Bois is alive with a myriad of bicycles, their lightstwinkling among the trees like many-colored fire-flies. To any one whoknows how to live there, Paris is at its best in the last half of Juneand July. Nevertheless, in a couple of days there will not be anAmerican 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 issure 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 hasit, who would fain serve God and Mammon. As anything especially amusingis sure to take place on Sunday in this wicked capital, our friends gothrough agonies of indecision, their consciences pulling one way, theirdesire to amuse themselves the other. Some find a middle course, itseems, for yesterday this conversation was overheard on the steps of theAmerican 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 atone!"

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 thewindfalls of our profession! For what is more attractive than to have awoman take you for her lay confessor, to whom she comes for advice introuble? opening her innocent heart for your inspection!

My correspondent complains that her days are not sufficiently long, noris her strength great enough, for the thousand and one duties andobligations imposed upon her. "If, " she says, "a woman has friends and asmall place in the world--and who has not in these days?--she must golfor 'bike' or skate a bit, of a morning; then she is apt to lunch out, orhave a friend or two in, to that meal. After luncheon there is sure tobe a 'class' of some kind that she has foolishly joined, or a charitymeeting, matinee, or reception; but above all, there are her 'duty'calls. She must be home at five to make tea, that she has promised hermen friends, and they will not leave until it is time for her to dressfor dinner, 'out' or at home, with often the opera, a supper, or a ballto follow. It is quite impossible, " she adds, "under these circumstancesto apply one's self to anything serious, to read a book or even open aperiodical. The most one can accomplish is a glance at a paper. "

Indeed, it would require an exceptional constitution to carry out theabove programme, not to mention the attention that a woman must (howeverreluctantly) give to her house and her family. Where are the quiet hoursto be found for self-culture, the perusal of a favorite author, or, perhaps, a little timid "writing" on her own account? Nor does thistreadmill round fill a few months only of her life. With slightvariations 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 theidea and convinced that he could make her portrait the best work of hislife, one that would be the stepping-stone to fame and fortune. This wasin the spring. He was naturally burning to begin at once, but found tohis dismay that the lady was just about starting for Europe. So hewaited, and at her suggestion installed himself a couple of months laterat the seaside city where she had a cottage. No one could be morecharming than she was, inviting him to dine and drive daily, but when hebroached the subject of "sitting, " was "too busy just that day. " Laterin the autumn she would be quite at his disposal. In the autumn, however, she was visiting, never ten days in the same place. Earlywinter found her "getting her house in order, " a mysterious riteapparently attended with vast worry and fatigue. With coolingenthusiasm, the painter called and coaxed and waited. November broughtthe opera and the full swing of a New York season. So far she has givenhim half a dozen sittings, squeezed in between a luncheon, which made her"unavoidably late, " for which she is charmingly "sorry, " and a receptionthat she was forced to attend, although "it breaks my heart to leave justas you are beginning to work so well, but I really must, or the tiresomeold cat who is giving the tea will be saying all sorts of unpleasantthings about me. " So she flits off, leaving the poor, disillusionedpainter before his canvas, knowing now that his dream is over, that in amonth or two his pretty sitter will be off again to New Orleans for thecarnival, 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 themysterious way disagreeable things do come to one, that she has beenheard to say, "I fear dear Mr. Palette is not very clever, for I havebeen 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 themwere strong enough to break through. It never entered into Beauty's headthat she could lead a life different from her friends. She was honestlyanxious to have a successful portrait of herself, but the sacrifice ofany of her habits was more than she could make. 

Who among my readers (and I am tempted to believe they are all moresensible than the above young woman) has not, during a summer passed withagreeable friends, made a thousand pleasant little plans with them forthe ensuing winter, --the books they were to read at the same time, the"exhibitions" they were to see, the visits to our wonderful collectionsin the Metropolitan Museum or private galleries, cosy little dinners, etc. ? And who has not found, as the winter slips away, that few of thesecharming plans have been carried out? He and his friends haveunconsciously fallen back into their ruts of former years, and thepleasant things projected have been brushed aside by that strongest oftyrants, habit. 

I once asked a very great lady, whose gracious manner was neverdisturbed, who floated through the endless complications of her life withsmiling serenity, how she achieved this Olympian calm. She was goodenough 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 everyother engagement. I could have done them all with hurry and fatigue. Iprefer to do one-half and enjoy what I do. If I go to a house, it is toremain and appreciate whatever entertainment has been prepared for me. Inever 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 easiernot to go, or to send a card. "

This brings me around to a subject which I believe is one of the causesof my correspondent's dilemma. I fear that she never can refuseanything. It is a peculiar trait of people who go about to amusethemselves, that they are always sure the particular entertainment theyhave been asked to last is going to "be amusing. " It rarely is differentfrom the others, but these people are convinced, that to stay away wouldbe to miss something. A weary-looking girl about 1 A. M. (at ahouse-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 somethingjolly, and then I miss it. "

There is no greater proof of how much this weary round wears on womenthan the acts of the few who feel themselves strong enough in theirposition to defy custom. They have thrown off the yoke (at least theyounger ones have) doubtless backed up by their husbands, for men aremuch quicker to see the aimlessness of this stupid social routine. Firstthey broke down the great New-Year-call "grind. " Men over fortydoubtless recall with a shudder, that awful custom which compelled a manto get into his dress clothes at ten A. M. , and pass his day rushing aboutfrom house to house like a postman. Out-of-town clubs and sport helpedto do away with that remnant of New Amsterdam. Next came the male revoltfrom the afternoon "tea" or "musical. " A black coat is rare now ateither of these functions, or if seen is pretty sure to be on a back overfifty. Next, we lords of creation refused to call at all, or leave ourcards. A married woman now leaves her husband's card with her own, andsisters leave the "pasteboard" of their brothers and often those of theirbrothers' 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 ayoung man boast that he never owned a visiting card or made a "duty" callin his life. Neither there nor with us does a man count as a "call" aquiet cup of tea with a woman he likes, and a cigarette and quiet talkuntil dressing time. Let the young women have courage and take mattersinto their own hands. (The older ones are hopeless and will go onpushing this Juggernaut car over each other's weary bodies, until the endof the chapter. ) Let them have the courage occasionally to "refuse"something, to keep themselves free from aimless engagements, and bringthis paste-board war to a close. If a woman is attractive, she will beasked out all the same, never fear! If she is not popular, the few dozenof "egg-shell extra" that she can manage to slip in at the front doors ofher acquaintances will not help her much. 

If this matter is, however, so vastly important in women's eyes, why notadopt the continental and diplomatic custom and send cards by post orotherwise? There, if a new-comer dines out and meets twenty-five peoplefor the first time, cards must be left the next day at their twenty-fiverespective residences. How the cards get there is of no importance. Itis a diplomatic fiction that the new acquaintance has called in person, and the call will be returned within twenty-four hours. Think of thesaving of time and strength! In Paris, on New Year's Day, people sendcards 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 givento culture or recreation. 

I have often wondered why one sees so few women one knows at our pictureexhibitions or flower shows. It is no longer a mystery to me. They areall busy trotting up and down our long side streets leaving cards. Hideous vision! Should Dante by any chance reincarnate, he would findhere 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 ofservants generally, and their ingratitude and astonishing lack ofaffection for their masters, in particular. "After all I have done forthem, " is pretty sure to sum up the long tale of a housewife's griefs. Ofall the delightful inconsistencies that grace the female mind, thislatter point of view always strikes me as being the most complete. Iartfully lead my fair friend on to tell me all about her woes, and she issure to be exquisitely one-sided and quite unconscious of her position. "They are so extravagant, take so little interest in my things, and leaveme 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 endlessworry and annoyance. " My friend is very nearly right, --but with whomlies the fault?

The conditions were bad enough years ago, when servants were kept fordecades in the same family, descending like heirlooms from father to son, often (abroad) being the foster sisters or brothers of their masters, andbound to the household by an hundred ties of sympathy and tradition. Butin our day, and in America, where there is rarely even a common languageor nationality to form a bond, and where households are broken up withsuch facility, the relation between master and servant is often sostrained and so unpleasant that we risk becoming (what foreignersreproach 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 theentrance-hall, nothing could be better contrived to set one class againstanother than domestic service. 

Proverbs have grown out of it in every language. "No man is a hero tohis valet, " and "familiarity breeds contempt, " are clear enough. Ourcomic papers are full of the misunderstandings and absurdities of thesituation, while one rarely sees a joke made about the other ways thatthe poor earn their living. Think of it for a moment! To be obliged toattend people at the times of day when they are least attractive, whenfrom fatigue or temper they drop the mask that society glues to theirfaces so many hours in the twenty-four; to see always the seamy side oflife, the small expedients, the aids to nature; to stand behind a chairand hear an acquaintance of your master's ridiculed, who has just beenwarmly praised to his face; to see a hostess who has been graciouslyurging her guests "not to go so soon, " blurt out all her boredom andthankfulness "that those tiresome So-and-So's" are "paid off at last, " assoon as the door is closed behind them, must needs give a curious bent toa servant's mind. They see their employers insincere, and copy them. Many a mistress who has been smilingly assured by her maid how much herdress becomes her, and how young she is looking, would be thunderstruckto hear herself laughed at and criticised (none too delicately) fiveminutes 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 ofa lady who makes her sit up night after night until the small hours tounlace her bodice or take down her hair; or imagine a valet can bedevoted to a master he has to get into bed as best he can because he istoo 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 "horsescorrupt whoever lives with them. " It would be more correct to say thatdomestic service demoralizes alike both master and man. 

Already we are obliged to depend on immigration for our servants becausean American revolts from the false position, though he willingly acceptslonger hours or harder work where he has no one around him but hisequals. 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, thedifficulty of getting efficient and contented servants will increase withus. It has already become a great social problem in England. Thetrouble lies beneath the surface. If a superior class accept service atall, it is with the intention of quickly getting money enough to dosomething better. With them service is merely the means to an end. Afirst step on the ladder!

Bad masters are the cause of so much suffering, that to protectthemselves, the great brother-hood of servants have imagined a system ofkeeping run of "places, " and giving them a "character" which an aspirantcan find out with little trouble. This organization is so complete, andso 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 willsooner remain idle than enter it. If circumstances are too much for himand he accepts the situation, it is with his eyes open, knowinginfinitely more about his new employers and their failings than theydream of, or than they could possibly find out about him. 

One thing never can be sufficiently impressed on people, viz. : that weare forced to live with detectives, always behind us in caps or dress-suits, ready to note every careless word, every incautious criticism offriend or acquaintance--their money matters or their love affairs--andwho have nothing more interesting to do than to repeat what they haveheard, 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 thespring, to have her say "Hush!" with a frightened glance towards thedoor. 

"I am; but I do not want the servants to know, or the horrid things wouldleave me!"

Poor, simple lady! They knew it before you did, and had discussed thewhole matter over their "tea" while it was an almost unuttered thought inyour mind. If they have not already given you notice, it is because, onthe whole your house suits them well enough for the present, while theylook about. Do not worry your simple soul, trying to keep anything fromthem. They know the amount of your last dressmaker's bill, and the rowyour husband made over it. They know how much you would have liked young"Croesus" for your daughter, and the little tricks you played to bringthat marriage about. They know why you are no longer asked to dine atMrs. Swell's, which is more than you know yourself. Mrs. Swell explainedthe matter to a few friends over her lunch-table recently, and the butlertold your maid that same evening, who was laughing at the story as sheput on your slippers!

Before we blame them too much, however, let us remember that they have itin their power to make great trouble if they choose. And considering thelittle 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 tryingsituation with much good humor and kindliness. The lady who isastonished that they take so little interest in her, will perhaps feeldifferently if she reflects how little trouble she has given herself tofind out their anxieties and griefs, their temptations andheart-burnings; their material situation; whom they support with theirslowly earned wages, what claims they have on them from outside. If shewill also reflect on the number of days in a year when she is "notherself, " when headaches or disappointments ruffle her charming temper, she may come to the conclusion that it is too much to expect all thevirtues 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 whowrote 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 fromhis travelling berline and his leg was broken, near the Italian hamlet ofCannes, the Riviera was as unknown to the polite world as the centre ofChina. The _grand tour_ which every young aristocrat made with histutor, on coming of age, only included crossing from France into Italy bythe Alps. It was the occurrence of an unusually severe winter inSwitzerland that turned Brougham aside into the longer and less travelledroute _via_ the Corniche, the marvellous Roman road at that time falleninto oblivion, and little used even by the local peasantry. 

During the tedious weeks while his leg was mending, Lord Brougham amusedhimself by exploring the surrounding country in his carriage, and wasquick to realize the advantages of the climate, and appreciate themarvellous beauty of that coast. Before the broken member was wholeagain, he had bought a tract of land and begun a villa. Small seed, tofurnish such a harvest! To the traveller of to-day the Riviera offers analmost unbroken chain of beautiful residences from Marseilles to Genoa. 

A Briton willingly follows where a lord leads, and Cannes became thecentre of English fashion, a position it holds to-day in spite of manyattractive rivals, and the defection of Victoria who comes now to Cimiez, back of Nice, being unwilling to visit Cannes since the sudden deaththere 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 canlive years in a country and assimilate none of its customs; on thecontrary, imposing habits of their own. It is just this that makes themsuch wonderful colonizers, and explains why you will find little groupsof English people drinking ale and playing golf in the shade of thePyramids or near the frozen slopes of Foosiyama. The real inwardness ofit is that they are a dull race, and, like dull people despise all thatthey do not understand. To differ from them is to be in the wrong. Theycannot 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 ourpronunciation of this particular word as the English. The answer wascharacteristic. 

"I know I am right, " said my Island friend, "because that is the way Ipronounce it!"

Walking along the principal streets of Cannes to-day, you might imagineyourself (except for the climate) at Cowes or Brighton, so British arethe 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 theEnglish have imposed a taste of their own on a rebellious nation. Nothingis further from the French taste than tea-drinking, and yet a Parisianlady will now invite you gravely to "five o'clocker" with her, although Ican 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 haveanswered:

"Why? I am not ill!"

Even Paris (that supreme and undisputed arbiter of taste) has submittedto English influence; tailor-made dresses and low-heeled shoes havebecome as "good form" in France as in London. The last two Presidents ofthe French Republic have taken the oath of office dressed in frock-coatsinstead of the dress clothes to which French officials formerly clung asto the sacraments. 

The municipalities of the little Southern cities were quick to seizetheir golden opportunity, and everything was done to detain the richEnglish wandering down towards Italy. Millions were spent intransforming their cramped, dirty, little towns. Wide boulevardsbordered with palm and eucalyptus spread their sunny lines in alldirections, being baptized _Promenade des Anglais_ or _BoulevardVictoria_, in artful flattery. The narrow mountain roads were widened, casinos and theatres built and carnival _fetes_ organized, the citiesoffering "cups" for yacht- or horse-races, and giving grounds for tennisand golf clubs. Clever Southern people! The money returned to them ahundredfold, and they lived to see their wild coast become the chosenresidence of the wealthiest aristocracy in Europe, and the rockyhillsides blossom into terrace above terrace of villa gardens, where palmand rose and geranium vie with the olive and the mimosa to shade thewhite villas from the sun. To-day, no little town on the coast iswithout its English chapel, British club, tennis ground, and golf links. On a fair day at Monte Carlo, Nice, or Cannes, the prevailingconversation is in English, and the handsome, well-dressed sons of Albionlounge along beside their astonishing womankind as thoroughly at home ason Bond Street. 

Those wonderful English women are the source of unending marvel andamusement to the French. They can never understand them, and smallwonder, for with the exception of the small "set" that surrounds thePrince of Wales, who are dressed in the Parisian fashion, all Englishwomen seem to be overwhelmed with regret at not being born men, and tohave spent their time and ingenuity since, in trying to make up fornature's mistake. Every masculine garment is twisted by them to fit thefemale figure; their conversation, like that of their brothers, is abouthorses and dogs; their hats and gloves are the same as the men's; andwhen with their fine, large feet in stout shoes they start off, with thatparticular swinging gait that makes the skirt seem superfluous, for astroll of twenty miles or so, Englishwomen do seem to the uninitiated tohave succeeded in their ambition of obliterating the difference betweenthe sexes. 

It is of an evening, however, when concealment is no longer possible, that the native taste bursts forth, the Anglo-Saxon standing declared inall her plainness. Strong is the contrast here, where they are placedside by side with all that Europe holds of elegant, and well-dressedFrenchwomen, whether of the "world" or the "half-world, " are invariablymarvels of fitness and freshness, the simplest materials being convertedby their skilful touch into toilettes, so artfully adapted to thewearer's figure and complexion, as to raise such "creations" to the levelof a fine art. 

An artist feels, he must fix on canvas that particular combination ofcolors or that wonderful line of bust and hip. It is with a shudder thathe turns to the British matron, for she has probably, for this occasion, draped herself in an "art material, "--principally "Liberty" silks ofdirty greens and blues (aesthetic shades!). He is tempted to cry out inhis disgust: "Oh, Liberty! Liberty! How many crimes are committed inthy name!" It is one of the oddest things in the world that the Englishshould have elected to live so much in France, for there are probablynowhere two peoples so diametrically opposed on every point, or who sopersistently and wilfully misunderstand each other, as the English andthe French. 

It has been my fate to live a good deal on both sides of the Channel, andnothing is more amusing than to hear the absurdities that are gravelyasserted by each of their neighbors. To a Briton, a Frenchman willalways be "either tiger or monkey" according to Voltaire; while to theFrench mind English gravity is only hypocrisy to cover every vice. Nothing pleases him so much as a great scandal in England; he willgleefully bring you a paper containing the account of it, to prove howtrue 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 livesdrinking absinthe on the boulevards; and as Englishmen seem to leavetheir morals in a valise at Dover when off for a visit to Paris, to bepicked up on their return, it is time lost to try to make a Gaulunderstand what good husbands and fathers the sons of Albion are. 

These two great nations seem to stand in the relation to each other thatRome and Greece held. The English are the conquerors of the world, andits great colonizers; with a vast capital in which wealth and miseryjostle each other on the streets; a hideous conglomeration of buildingsand monuments, without form and void, very much as old Rome must havebeen under the Caesars, enormous buildings without taste, and enormouswealth. The French have inherited the temperament of the Greeks. Thedrama, painting, and sculpture are the preoccupation of the people. Theyearly exhibitions are, for a month before they open, the unique subjectof conversation in drawing-room or club. The state protects the artistand buys his work. Their _conservatoires_ form the singers, and theirschools the painters and architects of Europe and America. 

The English copy them in their big way, just as the Romans copied themasterpieces of Greek art, while they despised the authors. It is rarethat a play succeeds in Paris which is not instantly translated andproduced in London, often with the adapter's name printed on theprogramme in place of the author's, the Frenchman, who only wrote it, being ignored. Just as the Greeks faded away and disappeared beforetheir Roman conquerors, it is to be feared that in our day this people ofa finer clay will succumb. The "defects of their qualities" will betheir ruin. They will stop at home, occupied with literature and art, perfecting their dainty cities; while their tougher neighbors aredominating the globe, imposing their language and customs on theconquered peoples or the earth. One feels this on the Riviera. Itreminds you of the cuckoo who, once installed in a robin's nest, thatseems to him convenient and warmly located in the sunshine, ends bykicking out all the young robins. 

No. 23--A Common Weakness

Governments may change and all the conditions of life be modified, butcertain ambitions and needs of man remain immutable. Climates, customs, centuries, have in no way diminished the craving for consideration, thedesire to be somebody, to bear some mark indicating to the world that oneis not as other men. 

For centuries titles supplied the want. This satisfaction has beendenied to us, so ambitious souls are obliged to seek other means to feedtheir vanity. 

Even before we were born into the world of nations, an attempt was madeamongst the aristocratically minded court surrounding our chiefmagistrate, to form a society that should (without the name) be thebeginning of a class apart. 

The order of the Cincinnati was to have been the nucleus of an Americannobility. The tendencies of this society are revealed by the fact thatprimogeniture was its fundamental law. Nothing could have been moreopposed to the spirit of the age, nor more at variance with thedeclaration of our independence, than the insertion of such a clause. This fact was discovered by the far-seeing eye of Washington, and thesociety was suppressed in the hope (shared by almost all contemporaries)that with new forms of government the nature of man would undergo atransformation and rise above such puerile ambitions. 

Time has shown the fallacy of these dreams. All that has beenaccomplished is the displacement of the objective point; the desire, themania for a handle to one's name is as prevalent as ever. Leave thecentres of civilization and wander in the small towns and villages of ourcountry. Every other man you meet is introduced as the Colonel or theJudge, 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 otherhand, to omit his prefix in addressing one of these local magnates, wouldbe to offend him deeply. The women-folk were quick to borrow a little ofthis distinction, and in Washington to-day one is gravely presented toMrs. Senator Smith or Mrs. Colonel Jones. The climax being reached byone aspiring female who styles herself on her visiting cards, "Mrs. Acting-Assistant-Paymaster Robinson. " If by any chance it should occurto any one to ask her motive in sporting such an unwieldy handle, shewould say that she did it "because one can't be going about explainingthat one is not just ordinary Mrs. Robinson or Thompson, like thethousand others in town. " A woman who cannot find an excuse for assumingsuch a prefix will sometime have recourse to another stratagem, toparticularize an ordinary surname. She remembers that her husband, whoever since he was born has been known to everybody as Jim, is the proudpossessor of the middle name Ivanhoe, or Pericles (probably the result ofa romantic mother's reading); so one fine day the young couple bloom outas 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, wasreceived with enthusiasm in England because it was thought "TheHonorable" which preceded his name on his cards implied that although anAmerican he was somehow the son of an earl. As a matter of fact he owedthis title to having sat, many years before in the Senate of afar-western State. He will cling to that "Honorable" and print it on hiscards while life lasts. I was told the other day of an American carpetwarrior who appeared at court function abroad decorated with everycollege badge, and football medal in his possession, to which he added atthe last moment a brass trunk check, to complete the brilliancy of theeffect. This latter decoration attracted the attention of the HeirApparent, who inquired the meaning of the mystic "416" upon it. Thiswould have been a "facer" to any but a true son of Uncle Sam. Nothingdaunted, however, our "General" replied "That, Sir, is the number ofpitched battles I have won. "

I have my doubts as to the absolute veracity of this tale. But that theson of one of our generals, appeared not long ago at a public receptionabroad, wearing his father's medals and decorations, is said to be true. Decorations on the Continent are official badges of distinction conferredand recognized by the different governments. An American who wears, outof his own country, an army or college badge which has no officialexistence, properly speaking, being recognized by no government, butwhich is made intentionally to look as much as possible like the "Legiond'Honneur, " is deliberately imposing on the ignorance of foreigners, andis but little less of a pretentious idiot than the owners of the trunkcheck and the borrowed decorations. 

There seems no end to the ways a little ambitious game can be played. Onedevice much in favor is for the wife to attach her own family name tothat of her husband by means of a hyphen. By this arrangement she doesnot entirely lose her individuality; as a result we have a splendidassortment of hybrid names, such as Van Cortland-Smith and Beekman-Brown. Be they never so incongruous these double-barrelled cognomens serve theirpurpose and raise ambitious mortals above the level of other Smiths andBrowns. Finding that this arrangement works well in their own case, itis passed on to the next generation. There are no more Toms and Bills inthese aspiring days. The little boys are all Cadwalladers or Carrolls. Their school-fellows, however, work sad havoc with these high-soundingtitles and quickly abbreviate them into humble "Cad" or "Rol. "

It is surprising to notice what a number of middle-aged gentlemen haveblossomed out of late with decorations in their button-holes according tothe foreign fashion. On inquiry I have discovered that these ornamentsdesignate members of the G. A. R. , the Loyal Legion, or some local Post, for the rosettes differ in form and color. When these gentlemen travelabroad, to reduce their waists or improve their minds, the effects on thehotel waiters and cabmen must be immense. They will be charged threetimes the ordinary tariff instead of only the double which is thestranger's usual fate at the hands of simple-minded foreigners. Thesatisfaction 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 theinitiated doubtless mean something, but which are also intended to fillthe souls of the ignorant with envy. I can recall but one case of aforeign decoration being refused by a compatriot. He was a genius and weall know that geniuses are crazy. This gentleman had done somethingparticularly gratifying to an Eastern potentate, who in return offeredhim one of his second-best orders. It was at once refused. When urgedon him a second time our countryman lost his temper and answered, "If youwant to give it to somebody, present it to my valet. He is most anxiousto be decorated. " And it was done!

It does not require a deeply meditative mind to discover the motives ofambitious struggles. The first and strongest illusion of the human mindis to believe that we are different from our fellows, and our naturalimpulse is to try and impress this belief upon others. 

Pride of birth is but one of the manifestations of the universalweakness--invariably taking stronger and stronger hold of the people, whofrom the modest dimension of their income, or other untowardcircumstances, can find no outward and visible form with which to dazzlethe world. You will find that a desire to shine is the secret of most ofthe tips and presents that are given while travelling or visiting, forthey can hardly be attributed to pure spontaneous generosity. 

How many people does one meet who talk of their poor and unsuccessfulrelatives while omitting to mention rich and powerful connections? Weare told that far from blaming such a tendency we are to admire it. Thatit is proper pride to put one's best foot forward and keep an offendingmember 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, isan honor to his family. 

Far be it from me to deride this weakness in others, for in my heart I ampersuaded that if I lived in China, nothing would please me more than tohave my cap adorned with a coral button, while if fate had cast my lifein the pleasant places of central Africa, a ring in my nose woulddoubtless have filled my soul with joy. The fact that I share thisweakness 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, " andis in many ways going through a curious stage of transformation, sociallyas well as materially. The _Palais De l'Industrie_, familiar to allvisitors here, as the home of the _Salons_, the Horse Shows, and athousand gay _fetes_ and merry-makings, is being torn down to make wayfor the new avenue leading, with the bridge Alexander III. , from theChamps Elysees to the Esplanade des Invalides. This thoroughfare withthe gilded dome of Napoleon's tomb to close its perspective is intendedto be the feature of the coming "show. "

Curious irony of things in this world! The _Palais De l'Industrie_ wasintended to be the one permanent building of the exhibition of 1854. Anold "Journal" I often read tells how the writer saw the long line ofgilded coaches (borrowed from Versailles for the occasion), eight horsesapiece, led by footmen--horses and men blazing in embroideredtrappings--leave the Tuileries and proceed at a walk to the great gatewayof the now disappearing palace. Victoria and Albert who were on anofficial visit to the Emperor were the first to alight; then Eugenie inthe 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 thatspring morning forty-four years ago. She wore rose-colored silk with anover-dress (I think that is what it is called) of black lace flounces, immense hoops, and a black _Chantilly_ lace shawl. Her hair, a brilliantgolden auburn, was dressed low on the temples, covering the ears, andhung down her back in a gold net almost to her waist; at the extreme backof her head was placed a black and rose-colored bonnet; open "flowing"sleeves showed her bare arms, one-buttoned, straw-colored gloves, andruby bracelets; she carried a tiny rose-colored parasol not a foot indiameter. 

How England's great sovereign was dressed the writer of the journal doesnot so well remember, for in those days Eugenie was the cynosure of alleyes, and people rarely looked at anything else when they could get aglimpse of her lovely face. 

It appears, however, that the Queen sported an India shawl, hoops, and agreen bonnet, which was not particularly becoming to her red face. Sheand Napoleon entered the building first; the Empress (who was in delicatehealth) was carried in an open chair, with Prince Albert walking at herside, a marvellously handsome couple to follow the two dowdy littlesovereigns who preceded them. The writer had by bribery succeeded ingetting places in an _entresol_ window under the archway, and was greatlyimpressed to see those four great ones laughing and joking together overEugenie's trouble in getting her hoops into the narrow chair!

What changes have come to that laughing group! Two are dead, one dyingin exile and disgrace; and it would be hard to find in the two rheumaticold ladies whom one sees pottering about the Riviera now, any trace ofthose smiling wives. In France it is as if a tidal wave had swept overNapoleon's court. Only the old palace stood severely back from theChamps Elysees, as if guarding its souvenirs. The pick of the mason hasbrought down the proud gateway which its imperial builder fondly imaginedwas to last for ages. The Tuileries preceded it into oblivion. TheAlpha and Omega of that gorgeous pageant of the fifties vanished like amirage!

It is not here alone one finds Paris changing. A railway is beingbrought along the quais with its depot at the Invalides. Another is tofind its terminus opposite the Louvre, where the picturesque ruin of theCour des Comptes has stood half-hidden by the trees since 1870. A lineof electric cars crosses the Rond Point, in spite of the opposition ofall the neighborhood, anxious to keep, at least that fine perspectivefree from such desecration. And, last but not least, there is everyprospect of an immense system of elevated railways being inaugurated inconnection with the coming world's fair. The direction of this kind ofimprovement is entirely in the hands of the Municipal Council, and thatbody has become (here in Paris) extremely radical, not to saycommunistic; and takes pleasure in annoying the inhabitants of the richerquarters of the city, under pretext of improvements and facilities ofcirculation. 

It is easy to see how strong the feeling is against the aristocraticclass. Nor is it much to be wondered at! The aristocracy seem to try tomake themselves unpopular. They detest the republic, which has shornthem of their splendor, and do everything in their power (socially anddiplomatically their power is still great) to interfere with andfrustrate the plans of the government. Only last year they seized anopportunity at the funerals of the Duchesse d'Alencon and the Ducd'Aumale to make a royalist manifestation of the most pronouncedcharacter. The young Duchesse d'Orleans was publicly spoken of andtreated as the "Queen of France;" at the private receptions given duringher stay in Paris the same ceremonial was observed as if she had beenreally on the throne. The young Duke, her husband, was not present, being in exile as a pretender, but armorial bearings of the "reigningfamily, " as their followers insist on calling them, were hung around theMadeleine and on the funeral-cars of both the illustrious dead. 

The government is singularly lenient to the aristocrats. If a poor mancries "Long live the Commune!" in the street, he is arrested. Thepolice, however, stood quietly by and let a group of the old nobilityshout "Long live the Queen!" as the train containing the young Duchessed'Orleans moved out of the station. The secret of this leniency towardthe "pretenders" to the throne, is that they are very little feared. Ifit amuses a set of wealthy people to play at holding a court, the stronggovernment of the republic cares not one jot. The Orleans family havenever been popular in France, and the young pretender's marriage to anAustrian Archduchess last year has not improved matters. 

It is the fashion in the conservative Faubourg St. Germain, to ridiculethe President, his wife and their bourgeois surroundings, as forty yearsago the parents of these aristocrats affected to despise the imperial_parvenus_. The swells amused themselves during the official visit ofthe Emperor and Empress of Russia last year (which was gall and wormwoodto them) by exaggerating and repeating all the small slips in etiquettethat the President, an intelligent, but simple-mannered gentleman, wassupposed to have made during the sojourn of his imperial guests. 

Both M. And Mme. Faure are extremely popular with the people, and areheartily cheered whenever they are seen in public. The President is thedespair of the lovers of routine and etiquette, walking in and out of hisPalais of the Elysee, like a private individual, and breaking all rulesand regulations. He is fond of riding, and jogs off to the Bois of amorning with no escort, and often of an evening drops in at the theatresin a casual way. The other night at the Francais he suddenly appeared inthe _foyer des artistes_ (a beautiful greenroom, hung with historicalportraits of great actors and actresses, one of the prides of thetheatre) in this informal manner. Mme. Bartet, who happened to be therealone at the time, was so impressed at such an unprecedented event thatshe 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 hasknown and loved are a sad trial. Henri Drumont, in his delightful _MonVieux Paris_, deplores this modern mania for reform which has done suchgood work in the new quarters but should, he thinks, respect the historicstreets and shady squares. 

One naturally feels that the sights familiar in youth lose by beingtransformed and doubts the necessity of such improvements. 

The Rome of my childhood is no more! Half of Cairo was ruthlesslytransformed in sixty-five into a hideous caricature of modern Paris. Milan has been remodelled, each city losing in charm as it gained inconvenience. 

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 ofmany transformations, still holds her admirers with a dominating sway. She pours out for them a strong elixir that once tasted takes the flavorout 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 thiscountry was still in long clothes, a time when the equality of man wasthe new "fad" of many nations, and the prizes of life first came withinthe reach of those fortunate or unscrupulous enough to seize them, itbecame the fashion (and has remained so down to our day) to teach everylittle boy attending a village school to look upon himself as a possiblefuture President, and to assume that every girl was preparing herself forthe position of first lady in the land. This is very well in theory, andpractice has shown that, as Napoleon said, "Every private may carry amarshal's baton in his knapsack. " Alongside of the good such incentivemay produce, it is only fair, however, to consider also how much harm maylie 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 inany other country, an inclination among all classes to leave thesurroundings where they were born and bend their energies to strugglingout of the position in life occupied by their parents. There are notwanting theorists who hold that this is a quality in a nation, and thatit leads to great results. A proposition open to discussion. 

It is doubtless satisfactory to designate first magistrates who haveraised themselves from humble beginnings to that proud position, andthere are times when it is proper to recall such achievements to therising generation. But as youth is proverbially over-confident it mightalso be well to point out, without danger of discouraging our sanguineyoungsters, that for one who has succeeded, about ten million confidentAmerican youths, full of ambition and lofty aims, have been obliged tocontent themselves with being honest men in humble positions, even astheir fathers before them. A sad humiliation, I grant you, for a self-respecting citizen, to end life just where his father did; often thecase, nevertheless, in this hard world, where so many fine qualities gounappreciated, --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 hadneed last summer of a boy to go with a lady on a trap and help about thestable. So I applied to a friend's coachman, a hard-working Englishman, who was delighted to get the place for his nephew--an American-bornboy--the child of a sister, in great need. As the boy's clothes werehardly presentable, a simple livery was made for him; from that moment hepined, and finally announced he was going to leave. In answer to mysurprised inquiries, I discovered that a friend of his from the sametenement-house in which he had lived in New York had appeared in thevillage, and sooner than be seen in livery by his play-fellow hepreferred abandoning his good place, the chance of being of aid to hismother, and learning an honorable way to earn his living. Remonstranceswere in vain; to the wrath of his uncle, he departed. The boy had, athis school, heard so much about everybody being born equal and everyAmerican being a gentleman by right of inheritance, that he had takenhimself seriously, and despised a position his uncle was proud to hold, preferring elegant leisure in his native tenement-house to thehumiliation of a livery. 

When at college I had rooms in a neat cottage owned by an Americanfamily. The father was a butcher, as were his sons. The only daughterwas exceedingly pretty. The hard-worked mother conceived high hopes forthis favorite child. She was sent to a boarding-school, from which shereturned entirely unsettled for life, having learned little except to beashamed of her parents and to play on the piano. One of theseinstruments of torture was bought, and a room fitted up as a parlor forthe daughter's use. As the family were fairly well-to-do, she wasallowed to dress out of all keeping with her parents' position, and, egged on by her mother, tried her best to marry a rich "student. " Failingin this, she became discontented, unhappy, and finally there was ascandal, this poor victim of a false ambition going to swell the vasttide of a city's vice. With a sensible education, based on the idea thather father's trade was honorable and that her mission in life was to aidher 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, andfinally bring up her children to be honest men and women, this girl wouldhave found a happy future waiting for her, and have been of some good inher humble way. 

It is useless to multiply illustrations. One has but to look about himin this unsettled country of ours. The other day in front of my door theperennial ditch was being dug for some gas-pipe or other. Two of thegentlemen who had consented to do this labor wore frock-coats and tophats--or what had once been those articles of attire--instead ofcomfortable and appropriate overalls. Why? Because, like the stable-boy, to have worn any distinctive dress would have been in their minds tostamp themselves as belonging to an inferior class, and so interferedwith their chances of representing this country later at the Court of St. James, or presiding over the Senate, --positions (to judge by theircriticism of the present incumbents) they feel no doubt as to theirability to fill. 

The same spirit pervades every trade. The youth who shaves me is not abarber; he has only accepted this position until he has time to dosomething better. The waiter who brings me my chop at a down-townrestaurant would resign his place if he were requested to shave hisflowing mustache, and is secretly studying law. I lose all patience withmy countrymen as I think over it! Surely we are not such a race of snobsas not to recognize that a good barber is more to be respected than apoor 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--towrite on quite another form of this modern folly, this eternal struggleupward into circles for which the struggler is fitted neither by hisbirth nor his education; the above was to have been but a preface to thematter I had in mind, viz. , "social climbers, " those scourges of modernsociety, the people whom no rebuffs will discourage and no cold shoulderchill, whose efforts have done so much to make our countrymen a bywordabroad. 

As many philosophers teach that trouble only is positive, happiness beingmerely relative; that in any case trouble is pretty equally distributedamong the different conditions of mankind; that, excepting the destituteand physically afflicted, all God's creatures have a share of joy intheir lives, would it not be more logical, as well as more conducive tothe general good, if a little more were done to make the young contentedwith their lot in life, instead of constantly suggesting to a racealready prone to be unsettled, that nothing short of the top is worthy ofan American citizen?

No. 26--The Climber

That form of misplaced ambition, which is the subject of the precedingchapter, can only be regarded seriously when it occurs among simple andsincere people, who, however derided, honestly believe that they aredoing their duty to themselves and their families when they move heavenand earth to rise a few steps in the world. The moment we find ambitiontaking a purely social form, it becomes ridiculous. The aim is so paltryin 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 thenineteenth 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 ofexistence to get into a certain "set, " not from any hope of profit orbenefit, nor from the belief that it is composed of brilliant and amusingpeople, but simply because it passes for being exclusive and difficult ofaccess, does at first seem incredible. 

That humble young painters or singers should long to know personally thegreat lights of their professions, and should strive to be accepted amongthem is easily understood, since the aspirants can reap but benefit, present and future, from such companionship. That a rising politicianshould deem it all-important to be on friendly terms with the "bosses" isnot astonishing, for those magnates have it in their power to make or marhis fortune. But in a _milieu_ as fluctuating as any social circle mustnecessarily be, shading off on all sides and changing as constantly aslight on water, the end can never be considered as achieved or the goalattained. 

Neither does any particular result accompany success, more substantialthan the moral one which lies in self-congratulation. That, however, isenough for a climber if she is bitten with the "ascending" madness. (Isay "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 comesplunging into our city from outside, hot for conquest, makingacquaintances right and left, indiscriminately; thus falling an easy preyto the wolves that prowl around the edges of society, waiting for justsuch lambs to devour. Her first entertainments are worth attending forshe has ingeniously contrived to get together all the people she shouldhave left out, and failed to attract the social lights and powers of themoment. If she be a quick-witted lady, she soon sees the error of herways and begins a process of "weeding"--as difficult as it is unwise, each rejected "weed" instantly becoming an enemy for life, not to speakof the risk she, in her ignorance, runs of mistaking for "detrimentals"the _fines fleurs_ of the worldly parterre. Ah! the way of the Climberis hard; she now begins to see that her path is not strewn with flowers. 

One tactful person of this kind, whose gradual "unfolding" was watchedwith much amusement and wonder by her acquaintances, avoided all theseerrors by going in early for a "dear friend. " Having, after maturereflection, chosen her guide among the most exclusive of the youngmatrons, she proceeded quietly to pay her court _en regle_. Flatteringlittle notes, boxes of candy, and bunches of flowers were among the formsher devotion took. As a natural result, these two ladies becameinseparable, and the most hermetically sealed doors opened before the newarrival. 

A talent for music or acting is another aid. A few years ago an entirefamily were floated into the desired haven on the waves of the sister'svoice, and one young couple achieved success by the husband's aptitudefor games and sports. In the latter case it was the man of the familywho did the work, dragging his wife up after him. A polo pony is hardlyone's idea of a battle-horse, but in this case it bore its rider on tosuccess. 

Once climbers have succeeded in installing themselves in the strongholdof their ambitions, they become more exclusive than their new friendsever dreamed of being, and it tries one's self-restraint to hear thesenew arrivals deploring "the levelling tendencies of the age, " orwondering "how nice people can be beginning to call on those horrid So-and-Sos. Their father sold shoes, you know. " This ultra-exclusivenessis not to be wondered at. The only attraction the circle they have justentered has for the climbers is its exclusiveness, and they do not intendthat it shall lose its market value in their hands. Like Baudelaire, they believe that "it is only the small number saved that makes the charmof Paradise. " Having spent hard cash in this investment, they have everyintention of getting their money's worth. 

In order to give outsiders a vivid impression of the footing on whichthey stand with the great of the world, all the women they have just metbecome Nellys and Jennys, and all the men Dicks and Freds--behind theirbacks, _bien entendu_--for Mrs. "Newcome" has not yet reached that pointof intimacy which warrants using such abbreviations directly to theowners. 

Another amiable weakness common to the climber is that of knowingeverybody. No name can be mentioned at home or abroad but Parvenuhappens to be on the most intimate terms with the owner, and when he isconversing, great names drop out of his mouth as plentifully as did thepearls from the pretty lips of the girl in the fairy story. All theworld knows how such a gentleman, being asked on his return from the Eastif he had seen "the Dardanelles, " answered, "Oh, dear, yes! I dined withthem several times!" thus settling satisfactorily his standing in theOrient!

Climbing, like every other habit, soon takes possession of the wholenature. To abstain from it is torture. Napoleon, we are told, found itimpossible to rest contented on his successes, but was impelled onward bya force stronger than his volition. In some such spirit the ambitioussouls here referred to, after "the Conquest of America" and the discoverythat the fruit of their struggles was not worth very much, victory havingbrought the inevitable satiety in its wake, sail away in search of newfields of adventure. They have long ago left behind the friends andacquaintances of their childhood. Relations they apparently have none, which accounts for the curious phenomenon that a parvenu is never inmourning. As no friendships bind them to their new circle, the ties areeasily loosened. Why should they care for one city more than foranother, unless it offer more of the sport they love? This continent hasbecome tame, since there is no longer any struggle, while over the seavast hunting grounds and game worthy of their powder, form anirresistible temptation--old and exclusive societies to be besieged, andcontests to be waged compared to which their American experiences are butlight skirmishes. As the polo pony is supposed to pant for the fray, sothe hearts of social conquerors warm within them at the prospect of morebrilliant victories. 

The pleasure of following them on their hunting parties abroad will haveto be deferred, so vast is the subject, so full of thrilling adventureand, alas! also of humiliating defeat. 

No. 27--The Last of the Dandies

So completely has the dandy disappeared from among us, that even the wordhas an old-time look (as if it had strayed out of some half-forgottennovel 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 whosefolds cover his chest, butter-colored gloves, and a hat--oh! a hat thatwould collect a crowd in two minutes in any neighborhood! A gold-headedstick, and a quizzing glass, with a black ribbon an inch wide, completethe toilet. In such a rig did the swells of the last generation strolldown Pall Mall or drive their tilburys in the Bois. 

The recent illness of the Prince de Sagan has made a strange and sadimpression 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 lastDandy! No understudy will be found to fill his role--the dude and theswell are whole generations away from the dandy, of which they are butfeeble reflections--the comedy will have to be continued now, without itsleading gentleman. With his head of silvery hair, his eye-glass and hiswonderful waistcoats, he held the first place in the "high life" of theFrench capital. 

No first night or ball was complete without him, Sagan. The very mentionof his name in their articles must have kept the wolf from the door ofneedy reporters. No _debutante_, social or theatrical, felt sure of hersuccess until it had received the hall-mark of his approval. When heassisted at a dress rehearsal, the actors and the managers paid him moreattention than Sarcey or Sardou, for he was known to be the real arbiterof their fate. His word was law, the world bowed before it as before thewill of an autocrat. Mature matrons received his dictates with the samereverence that the Old Guard evinced for Napoleon's orders. Had he notled them on to victory in their youth?

On the boulevards or at a race-course, he was the one person always knownby sight and pointed out. "There goes Sagan!" He had become aninstitution. One does not know exactly how or why he achieved theposition, which made him the most followed, flattered, and copied man ofhis day. It certainly was unique!

The Prince of Sagan is descended from Maurice de Saxe (the natural son ofthe King of Saxony and Aurora of Koenigsmark), who in his day shonebrilliantly at the French court and was so madly loved by AdrienneLecouvreur. From his great ancestor, Sagan inherited the title of GrandDuke Of Courland (the estates have been absorbed into a neighboringempire). Nevertheless, he is still an R. H. , and when crowned heads visitParis they dine with him and receive him on a footing of equality. Hemarried a great fortune, and the daughter of the banker Selliere. Theirhouse on the Esplanade des Invalides has been for years the centre ofaristocratic life in Paris; not the most exclusive circle, but certainlythe gayest of this gay capital, and from the days of Louis Philippe hehas 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 peopleappear to find in them the personification of all aspirations toward theelegant and the ideal. Alcibiades, Buckingham, the Duc de Richelieu, Lord Seymour, Comte d'Orsay, Brummel, Grammont-Caderousse, shared thisfavor, and have remained legendary characters, to whom their disdain foreverything vulgar, their worship of their own persons, and many costlyfollies gave an ephemeral empire. Their power was the more arbitrary anddespotic in that it was only nominal and undefined, allowing them to ruleover the fashions, the tastes, and the pastimes of their contemporarieswith undivided sway, making them envied, obeyed, loved, but rarelyoverthrown. 

It has been asserted by some writers that dandies are necessary anduseful to a nation (Thackeray admired them and pointed out that they havea most difficult and delicate role to play, hence their rarity), and thatthese butterflies, as one finds them in the novels of that day, the deMarsys, the Pelhams, the Maxime de Trailles, are indispensable to theperfection of society. It is a great misfortune to a country to have nodandies, those supreme virtuosos of taste and distinction. Germany, which glories in Mozart and Kant, Goethe and Humboldt, the country ofdeep thinkers and brave soldiers, never had a great dandy, and so hasremained behind England or France in all that constitutes the gracefulside of life, the refinements of social intercourse, and the art ofliving. France will perceive too late, after he has disappeared, theloss she has sustained when this Prince, Grand Seigneur, has ceased toembellish by his presence her race-courses and "first nights. " Areputation like his cannot be improvised in a moment, and he has nopupils. 

Never did the aristocracy of a country stand in greater need of such arepresentation, than in these days of tramcars and "fixed-price"restaurants. An entire "art" dies with him. It has been whispered thathe has not entirely justified his reputation, that the accounts of hisexploits as a _haut viveur_ have gained in the telling. Nevertheless hedominated an epoch, rising above the tumultuous and levelling society ofhis day, a tardy Don Quixote, of the knighthood of pleasures, _fetes_, loves and prodigalities, which are no longer of our time. His greatname, his grand manner, his elderly graces, his serene carelessness, madehim a being by himself. No one will succeed this master of departedelegances. If he does not recover from his attack, if the paralysis doesnot leave that poor brain, worn out with doing nothing, we can honestlysay 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 theadmiration of mankind, each under the form of some hero. Emerson wouldhave given a place in his Pantheon to Sagan. For it is he who sustainedthe traditions and became the type of that distinguished and frivoloussociety, which judged that serious things were of no importance, enthusiasm a waste of time, literature a bore; that nothing wasinteresting and worthy of occupying their attention except the elegantdistractions that helped to pass their days-and nights! He had the merit(?) in these days of the practical and the commonplace, of preserving inhis gracious person all the charming uselessness of a courtier in acountry where there was no longer a court. 

What a strange sight it would be if this departing dandy could, before heleaves for ever the theatre of so many triumphs, take his place at somestreet corner, and review the shades of the companions his long life hadthrown him with, the endless procession of departed belles and beaux, who, in their youth, had, under his rule, helped to dictate the fashionsand 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, withthe thoroughness that only the owner of a new house has the cruelty toinflict on his victims, not allowing them to pass a closet or an electricbell without having its particular use and convenience explained, forcingthem to look up coal-slides, and down air-shafts and to visit everysecret place, from the cellar to the fire-escape, I noticed that apeculiar arrangement of the rooms repeated itself on each floor, andseveral 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 startingout for themselves; this house will soon be much too big for two oldpeople to live in alone. We have planned it so that at any time it canbe changed into an apartment house at a nominal expense. It is evenwired and plumbed with that end in view!"

This answer positively took my breath away. I looked at my host inamazement. It was hard to believe that a man past middle age, who afteryears of hardest toil could afford to put half a million into a house forhimself and his children, and store it with beautiful things, would havethe 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 theworld without a roof over their wealthy old heads. 

Surely this was the Spirit of the Age in its purest expression, the morestrikingly so that he seemed to feel pride rather than anything else inhis ingenious combination. 

He liked the city he had built in well enough now, but nothing proved tohim that he would like it later. He and his wife had lived in twentycities since they began their brave fight with Fortune, far away in alittle Eastern town. They had since changed their abode with eachascending rung of the ladder of success, and beyond a faded daguerreotypeor two of their children and a few modest pieces of jewelry, stored awayin cotton, it is doubtful if they owned a single object belonging totheir 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 combiningeverything a fastidious taste could demand. One fine morning this placewas sold, the important library divided between the village and theirnative city, the furniture sold or given away, --everything went; at theend 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, "Wewere tired of it all and have decided to be 'Bohemians' for the rest ofour lives. " This couple are now wandering about Europe and half a dozentrunks contain their belongings. 

These are, of course, extreme cases and must be taken for what they areworth; 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 oftensaunter up our principal avenue, and always find myself wondering whatwill be the future of the splendid residences that grace thatthoroughfare as it nears the Park; the ascending tide of trade is alreadycircling round them and each year sees one or more crumble away anddisappear. 

The finer buildings may remain, turned into clubs or restaurants, but thegreater part of the newer ones are so ill-adapted to any other use thanthat for which they are built that their future seems obscure. 

That fashion will flit away from its present haunts there can be littledoubt; the city below the Park is sure to be given up to business, andeven the fine frontage on that green space will sooner or later beoccupied by hotels, if not stores; and he who builds with any belief inthe permanency of his surroundings must indeed be of a hopefuldisposition. 

A good lady occupying a delightful corner on this same avenue, opposite aone-story florist's shop, said:

"I shall remain here until they build across the way; then I suppose Ishall have to move. "

So after all the man who is contented to live in a future apartmenthouse, 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 grandsonafter him, on the condition that they should continue to live in it. 

Here was an attempt to keep together a home with its memories andassociations. What has been the result? The street that was a charmingcentre for residences twenty years ago has become a "slum;" theunfortunate heirs find themselves with a house on their hands that theycannot live in and are forbidden to rent or sell. As a final result thewill must in all probability be broken and the matter ended. 

Of course the reason for a great deal of this is the phenomenal growth ofour larger cities. Hundreds of families who would gladly remain in theirold 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 ceaseto expand or when centres will be formed as in London or Paris, wheregenerations may succeed each other in the same homes. So far, I see noindications of any such crystallization in this our big city; we seem tobe condemned like the "Wandering Jew" or poor little "Joe" to beperpetually "moving on. "

At a dinner of young people not long ago a Frenchman visiting ourcountry, expressed his surprise on hearing a girl speak of "notremembering the house she was born in. " Piqued by his manner the younglady answered:

"We are twenty-four at this table. I do not believe there is one personhere living in the house in which he or she was born. " This assertionraised a murmur of dissent around the table; on a census being taken itproved, however, to be true. 

How can one expect, under circumstances like these, to find any greatrespect among young people for home life or the conservative side ofexistence? They are born as it were on the wing, and on the wing willthey live. 

The conditions of life in this country, although contributing largely tosuch a state of affairs, must not be held, however, entirely responsible. Underlying our civilization and culture, there is still strong in us awild nomadic strain inherited from a thousand generations of wanderingancestors, which breaks out so soon as man is freed from the restraintincumbent on bread-winning for his family. The moment there is wealth oreven a modest income insured, comes the inclination to cut loose from thedull routine of business and duty, returning instinctively to themigratory habits of primitive man. 

We are not the only nation that has given itself up to globe-trotting; itis strong in the English, in spite of their conservative education, andit is surprising to see the number of formerly stay-at-home French andGermans one meets wandering in foreign lands. 

In 1855, a Londoner advertised the plan he had conceived of taking somepeople over to visit the International Exhibition in Paris. For a fixedsum paid in advance he offered to provide everything and act as courierto the party, and succeeded with the greatest difficulty in gettingtogether ten people. From this modest beginning has grown the vastundertaking that to-day covers the globe with tourists, from the frozenseas where they "do" the midnight sun, to the deserts three thousandmiles up the Nile. 

As I was returning a couple of years ago _via_ Vienna fromConstantinople, the train was filled with a party of our compatriotsconducted 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 atrip in the East as they would of starting off in balloons en route forthe inter-stellar spaces. 

I doubted at the time as to the amount of information and appreciationthey brought to bear on their travels, so I took occasion to draw one ofthe thin, unsmiling women into conversation, asking her where theyintended 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, "Ithought we had not got there yet. " Apparently it was enough for her tobe travelling; the rest was of little importance. Later in the day, whenasked if she had visited a certain old city in Germany, she told me shehad but would never go there again: "They gave us such poor coffee at thehotel. " Again later in speaking to her husband, who seemed a triflevague as to whether he had seen Nuremberg or not, she said:

"Why, you remember it very well; it was there you bought those niceovershoes!"

All of which left me with some doubts in my mind as to the cultivatinginfluences of foreign travel on their minds. 

You cannot change a leopard's spots, neither can you alter the nature ofa race, and one of the strongest characteristics of the Anglo-Saxon, isthe nomadic instinct. How often one hears people say:

"I am not going to sit at home and take care of my furniture. I want tosee something of the world before I am too old. " Lately, a sprightlymaiden of uncertain years, just returned from a long trip abroad, wasasked if she intended now to settle down. 

"Settle down, indeed! I'm a butterfly and I never expect to settledown. "

There is certainly food here for reflection. Why should we be moreinclined to wander than our neighbors? Perhaps it is in a measure due toour nervous, restless temperament, which is itself the result of ourclimate; but whatever the cause is, inability to remain long in one placeis having a most unfortunate influence on our social life. When everyoneis on the move or longing to be, it becomes difficult to form any but themost superficial ties; strong friendships become impossible, the mostintimate family relations are loosened. 

If one were of a speculative frame of mind and chose to take as the basisfor a calculation the increase in tourists between 1855, when the tenpioneers started for Paris, and the number "personally conducted" overland and sea to-day, and then glance forward at what the future will beif this ratio of increase is maintained the result would be something tooawful for words. For if ten have become a million in forty years, whatwill be the total in 1955? Nothing less than entire nations given overto sight-seeing, passing their lives and incomes in rushing aimlesslyabout. 

If the facilities of communication increase as they undoubtedly will withthe demand, the prospect becomes nearer the idea of a "Walpurgis Night"than anything else. For the earth and the sea will be covered and theair filled with every form of whirling, flying, plunging device to getmen quickly from one place to another. 

Every human being on the globe will be flying South for the cold monthsand North for the hot season. 

As personally conducted tours have been so satisfactory, agencies will bestarted to lead us through all the stages of existence. Parents willsubscribe on the birth of their children to have them personallyconducted through life and everything explained as it is done at presentin the galleries abroad; food, lodging and reading matter, husbands andwives will be provided by contract, to be taken back and changed ifunsatisfactory, as the big stores do with their goods. Delightfulprospect! Homes will become superfluous, parents and children will onlymeet when their "tours" happen to cross each other. Ourgreat-grandchildren will float through life freed from everyresponsibility and more perfectly independent than even that delightfuldreamer, Bellamy, ventured to predict. 

No. 29--Husks

Among the Protestants driven from France by that astute andliberal-minded sovereign Louis XIV. , were a colony of weavers, who as allthe world knows, settled at Spitalfields in England, where theirdescendants weave silk to this day. 

On their arrival in Great Britain, before the looms could be set up and amarket found for their industry, the exiles were reduced to the lastextremity of destitution and hunger. Looking about them for anythingthat could be utilized for food, they discovered that the owners ofEnglish slaughter-houses threw away as worthless, the tails of the cattlethey killed. Like all the poor in France, these wanderers were excellentcooks, and knew that at home such caudal appendages were highly valuedfor the tenderness and flavor of the meat. To the amazement and disgustof the English villagers the new arrivals proceeded to collect this"refuse" and carry it home for food. As the first principle of Frenchculinary art is the _pot-au-feu_, the tails were mostly converted intosoup, on which the exiles thrived and feasted. 

Their neighbors, envious at seeing the despised French indulging daily insavory dishes, unknown to English palates, and tempted like "Jack's"giant by the smell of "fresh meat, " began to inquire into the matter, andslowly realized how, in their ignorance, they had been throwing awaysucculent and delicate food. The news of this discovery graduallyspreading through all classes, "ox-tail" became and has remained thenational English soup. 

If this veracious tale could be twisted into a metaphor, it would servemarvellously to illustrate the position of the entire Anglo-Saxon race, and especially that of their American descendants as regards the Latinpeoples. 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 andmanagement as they are geographically asunder. Both are types andillustrations of the wilful waste that has recently excited Mr. IanMaclaren's comment, and the woeful want (of good food) that is theresult. At one, a dreary shingle construction on a treeless island, offour New England coast, where the ideas of the landlord and his guestshave remained as unchanged and primitive as the island itself, I found oninquiry that all articles of food coming from the first table were throwninto the sea; and I have myself seen chickens hardly touched, rounds ofbeef, trays of vegetables, and every variety of cake and dessert tossedto the fish. 

While we were having soups so thin and tasteless that they would havemade a French house-wife blush, the ingredients essential to an excellent"stock" were cast aside. The boarders were paying five dollars a day andappeared contented, the place was packed, the landlord coining money, soit was foolish to expect any improvement. 

The other hotel, a vast caravansary in the South, where a fortune hadbeen lavished in providing every modern convenience and luxury, was the"fad" of its wealthy owner. I had many talks with the manager during mystay, and came to realize that most of the wastefulness I saw around mewas not his fault, but that of the public, to whose taste he was obligedto cater. At dinner, after receiving your order, the waiter woulddisappear for half an hour, and then bring your entire meal on one tray, the over-cooked meats stranded in lakes of coagulated gravy, the entreescold and the ices warm. He had generally forgotten two or threeessentials, but to send back for them meant to wait another half-hour, ashis other clients were clamoring to be served. So you ate what wasbefore you in sulky disgust, and got out of the room as quickly aspossible. 

After one of these gastronomic races, being hungry, flustered, andsuffering from indigestion, I asked mine host if it had never occurred tohim 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 offeredthem in turn accompanied by its accessories. 

"Of course, I have thought of it, " he answered. "It would be thegreatest improvement that could be introduced into Americanhotel-keeping. No one knows better than I do how disastrous the presentsystem is to all parties. Take as an example of the present way, thedinner I am going to give you to-morrow, in honor of Christmas. Glanceover this _menu_. You will see that it enumerates every costly anddelicate article of food possible to procure and a long list of otherdishes, the greater part of which will not even be called for. As nonumber of _chefs_ could possibly oversee the proper preparation of such avariety of meats and sauces, all will be carelessly cooked, and as youknow by experience, poorly served. 

"People who exact useless variety, " he added, "are sure in some way to bethe sufferers; in their anxiety to try everything, they will get nothingworth eating. Yet that meal will cost me considerably more than myguests pay for their twenty-four hours' board and lodging. "

"Why do it, you ask? Because it is the custom, and because it will be anadvertisement. These bills of fare will be sown broadcast over thecountry in letters to friends and kept as souvenirs. If, instead of allthis senseless superfluity, I were allowed to give a _table d'hote_ mealto-morrow, with the _chef_ I have, I could provide an exquisite dinner, perfect in every detail, served at little tables as deftly and silentlyas in a private house. I could also discharge half of my waiters, andcharge two dollars a day instead of five dollars, and the hotel wouldbecome (what it has never been yet) a paying investment, so great wouldhe the saving. "

"Only this morning, " he continued, warming to his subject, "whilestanding in the dining room, I saw a young man order and then send awayhalf the dishes on the _menu_. A chicken was broiled for him andrejected; a steak and an omelette fared no better. How much do yousuppose a hotel gains from a guest like that?"

"The reason Americans put up with such poor viands in hotels is, thathome cooking in this country is so rudimentary, consisting principally offried dishes, and hot breads. So little is known about the properpreparation 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 forpeople who live poorly at home, lies in this power to order expensivedishes they rarely or never see on their own tables. "

"To be served with a quantity of food that he has but little desire toeat is one of an American citizen's dearest privileges, and a right hewill 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 secondaryimportance, he has it before him, and is contented. "

"The hotel that attempted limiting the liberty of its guests to theextent of serving them a _table d'hote_ dinner, would be emptied in aweek. "

"A crowning incongruity, as most people are delighted to dine withfriends, or at public functions, where the meal is invariably served _ala russe_ (another name for a _table d'hote_), and on these occasions areonly too glad to have their _menu_ chosen for them. The present way, however, is a remnant of 'old times' and the average American, with allhis love of change and novelty, is very conservative when it comes to histable. "

What this manager did not confide to me, but what I discovered later formyself, was that to facilitate the service, and avoid confusion in thekitchens, it had become the custom at all the large and most of the smallhotels in this country, to carve the joints, cut up the game, and portionout vegetables, an hour or two before meal time. The food, thusarranged, is placed in vast steam closets, where it simmers gayly forhours, in its own, and fifty other vapors. 

Any one who knows the rudiments of cookery, will recognize that with thissystem no viand can have any particular flavor, the partridges having ataste of their neighbor the roast beef, which in turn suggests the plumpudding it has been "chumming" with. 

It is not alone in a hotel that we miss the good in grasping after thebetter. Small housekeeping is apparently run on the same lines. 

A young Frenchman, who was working in my rooms, told me in reply to aquestion regarding prices, that every kind of food was cheaper here thanabroad, but the prejudice against certain dishes was so strong in thiscountry that many of the best things in the markets were never calledfor. Our nation is no longer in its "teens" and should cease to act likea foolish boy who has inherited (what appears to him) a limitlessfortune; 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 ofthe fable, in grasping after the shadow of a banquet he miss the simplemeal that is within his reach. 

One of the reasons for this deplorable state of affairs lies in thefoolish education our girls receive. They learn so little housekeepingat 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 goat the will and discretion of the "lady" below stairs. 

At both hotels I have referred to, the families of the men interestedconsidered it beneath them to know what was taking place. The "daughter"of the New England house went semi-weekly to Boston to take violinlessons at ten dollars each, although she had no intention of becoming aprofessional, while the wife wrote poetry and ignored the hotel side ofher life entirely. 

The "better half" of the Florida establishment hired a palace in Rome andentertained ambassadors. Hotels divided against themselves are apt to beestablishments where you pay for riotous living and are served only withhusks. 

We have many hard lessons ahead of us, and one of the hardest will be forour nation to learn humbly from the thrifty emigrants on our shores, thegreat art of utilizing the "tails" that are at this moment being sorecklessly thrown away. 

As it is, in spite of markets overflowing with every fish, vegetable, andtempting viand, we continue to be the worst fed, most meagrely nourishedof all the wealthy nations on the face of the earth. We have a saying(for an excellent reason unknown on the Continent) that Providenceprovides us with food and the devil sends the cooks! It would be truerto say that the poorer the food resources of a nation, the morerestricted the choice of material, the better the cooks; a small latitudewhen providing for the table forcing them to a hundred clevercombinations and mysterious devices to vary the monotony of their cuisineand tempt a palate, by custom staled. 

Our heedless people, with great variety at their disposition, are unequalto the situation, wasting and discarding the best, and making absolutelynothing 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 aright to live as he pleases. But as it is, our foolish prodigals arespending 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 aboutbreaking down the "great wall" behind which the aristocrats of the famousFaubourg, like the Celestials, their prototypes, have ensconcedthemselves. The Chinese speak of outsiders as "barbarians. " The Frenchladies refer to such unfortunates as being "beyond the pale. " Almost allthat has been written is arrant nonsense; that imaginary barrier existsto-day on as firm a foundation, and is guarded by sentinels as vigilantas when, forty years ago, Napoleon (third of the name) and his Spanishspouse mounted to its assault. 

Their repulse was a bitter humiliation to the _parvenue_ Empress, whoseresentment took the form (along with many other curious results) ofopening the present Boulevard St. Germain, its line being intentionallycarried through the heart of that quarter, teeming with historic "Hotels"of the old aristocracy, where beautiful constructions were mercilesslytorn down to make way for the new avenue. The cajoleries which Eugeniefirst tried and the blows that followed were alike unavailing. Even herworship of Marie Antoinette, between whom and herself she found imaginaryresemblances, failed to warm the stony hearts of the proud old ladies, towhom it was as gall and wormwood to see a nobody crowned in the palace oftheir kings. Like religious communities, persecution only drew this oldsociety more firmly together and made them stand by each other in theirdistress. When the Bois was remodelled by Napoleon and the lake with itswinding drive laid out, the new Court drove of an afternoon along thiswater front. That was enough for the old swells! They retired to theremote "Allee of the Acacias, " and solemnly took their airing away fromthe bustle of the new world, incidentally setting a fashion that has heldgood to this day; the lakeside being now deserted, and the "Acacias"crowded of an afternoon, by all that Paris holds of elegant andinelegant. 

Where the brilliant Second Empire failed, the Republic had little chanceof success. With each succeeding year the "Old Faubourg" withdrew moreand more into its shell, going so far, after the fall of Mac Mahon, as tochange its "season" to the spring, so that the balls and _fetes_ it gaveshould not coincide with the "official" entertainments during the winter. 

The next people to have a "shy" at the "Old Faubourg's" Gothicbattlements were the Jews, who were victorious in a few light skirmishesand succeeded in capturing one or two illustrious husbands for theirdaughters. The wily Israelites, however, discovered that titled sons-in-law were expensive articles and often turned out unsatisfactorily, sothey quickly desisted. The English, the most practical of societies, have always left the Faubourg alone. It has been reserved for ourcountrywomen to lay the most determined siege yet recorded to thatuntaken stronghold. 

It is a characteristic of the American temperament to be unable to see aclosed door without developing an intense curiosity to know what isbehind; or to read "No Admittance to the Public" over an entrance withoutimmediately determining to get inside at any price. So it is easy tounderstand the attraction an hermetically sealed society would have forour fair compatriots. Year after year they have flung themselves againstits closed gateways. Repulsed, they have retired only to form again forthe attack, but are as far away to-day from planting their flag in thatcitadel as when they first began. It does not matter to them what isinside; there may be (as in this case) only mouldy old halls and a groupof people with antiquated ideas and ways. It is enough for a certaintype of woman to know that she is not wanted in an exclusive circle, tobe ready to die in the attempt to get there. This point of view remindsone of Mrs. Snob's saying about a new arrival at a hotel: "I am sure shemust be 'somebody' for she was so rude to me when I spoke to her;" andher 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 theywanted to know us, Mamma:"

"Then, my dear, " replied Mamma Snob, "they certainly are not people wewant to meet!"

The men in French society are willing enough to make acquaintance withforeigners. You may see the youth of the Faubourg dancing at Americanballs 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 differentmatter. Americans who have known well-born Frenchmen at school orcollege are surprised, on meeting them later, to be asked (cordiallyenough) to dine _en garcon_ at a restaurant, although their Parisianfriend is married. An Englishman's or American's first word would be ona 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 hislife. His sister married a French nobleman. Yet at this moment, inspite of his wealth, his charming American wife, and many beautifulentertainments, he has not one warm French friend, or the _entree_ on afooting of intimacy to a single Gallic house. 

There is no analogy between the English aristocracy and the Frenchnobility, except that they are both antiquated institutions; the Englishis the more harmful on account of its legislative power, the French isthe more pretentious. The House of Lords is the most open club inLondon, the payment of an entrance-fee in the shape of a check to a partyfund being an all-sufficient sesame. In France, one must be born in themagic circle. The spirit of the Emigration of 1793 is not yet extinct. The nobles live in their own world (how expressive the word is, seemingto exclude all the rest of mankind), pining after an impossible_restauration_, alien to the present day, holding aloof from politics forfear of coming in touch with the masses, with whom they pride themselveson having nothing in common. 

What leads many people astray on this subject is that there has formedaround this ancient society a circle composed of rich "outsiders, " whohave married into good families; and of eccentric members of the latter, who from a love of excitement or for interested motives have broken awayfrom their traditions. Newly arrived Americans are apt to mistake this"world" for the real thing. Into this circle it is not difficult forforeigners who are rich and anxious to see something of life to gainadmission. To be received by the ladies of this outer circle, seems toour compatriots to be an achievement, until they learn the real standingof their new acquaintances. 

No gayer houses, however, exist than those of the new set. At their cityor country houses, they entertain continually, and they are the peopleone meets toward five o'clock, on the grounds of the Polo Club, in theBois, at _fetes_ given by the Island Club of Puteaux, attending the racemeetings, 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 someFrenchman of high rank. In these cases the girl is, as it were, swallowed up. Her family see little of her, she rarely appears ingeneral society, and, little by little, she is lost to her old friendsand relations. I know of several cases of this kind where it is to bedoubted if a dozen Americans outside of the girls' connections know thatsuch women exist. The fall in rents and land values has made the Frencharistocracy poor; it is only by the greatest economy (and it neverentered into an American mind to conceive of such economy as is practisedamong them) that they succeed in holding on to their historical chateauxor beautiful city residences; so that pride plays a large part in theisolation in which they live. 

The fact that no titles are recognized officially by the Frenchgovernment (the most they can obtain being a "courtesy" recognition) hasplaced these people in a singularly false position. An American girl whohas married a Duke is a good deal astonished to find that she is legallyonly plain "Madame So and So;" that when her husband does his militaryservice there is no trace of the high-sounding title to be found in hisofficial papers. Some years ago, a colonel was rebuked because heallowed the Duc d'Alencon to be addressed as "Monseigneur" by the otherofficers of his regiment. This ought to make ambitious papas reflect, when they treat themselves to titled sons-in-law. They should at leasttry and get an article recognized by the law. 

Most of what is written here is perfectly well known to residentAmericans in Paris, and has been the cause of gradually splitting thatonce harmonious settlement into two perfectly distinct camps, betweenwhich no love is lost. The members of one, clinging to theircountrymen's creed of having the best or nothing, have been contented tolive in France and know but few French people, entertaining amongthemselves and marrying their daughters to Americans. The members of theother, who have "gone in" for French society, take what they can get, and, on the whole, lead very jolly lives. It often happens (perhaps itis only a coincidence) that ladies who have not been very successful athome are partial to this circle, where they easily find guests for theirentertainments and the recognition their souls long for. 

What the future of the "Great Faubourg" will be, it is hard to say. Allhope of a possible _restauration_ appears to be lost. Will the proudnecks that refused to bend to the Orleans dynasty or the two "empires"bow themselves to the republican yoke? It would seem as if it mustterminate in this way, for everything in this world must finish. But theend is not yet; one cannot help feeling sympathy for people who aretrying to live up to their traditions and be true to such immaterialidols as "honor" and "family" in this discouragingly material age, wheneverything goes down before the Golden Calf. Nor does one wonder thatmen who can trace their ancestors back to the Crusades should hesitate toally themselves with the last rich _parvenu_ who has raised himself fromthe gutter, or resent the ardor with which the latest importation ofAmerican ambition tries to chum with them and push its way into theirlife. 

No. 31--Men's Manners

Nothing makes one feel so old as to wake up suddenly, as it were, andrealize that the conditions of life have changed, and that the standardsyou knew and accepted in your youth have been raised or lowered. Theyoung men you meet have somehow become uncomfortably polite, offering youarmchairs in the club, and listening with a shade of deference to yourstories. They are of another generation; their ways are not your ways, nor their ambitions those you had in younger days. One is tempted tolook a little closer, to analyze what the change is, in what this subtledifference consists, which you feel between your past and their present. You are surprised and a little angry to discover that, among otherthings, young men have better manners than were general among the youthsof fifteen years ago. 

Anyone over forty can remember three epochs in men's manners. When I wasa very young man, there were still going about in society a number ofgentlemen belonging to what was reverently called the "old school, " whohad evidently taken Sir Charles Grandison as their model, read LordChesterfield's letters to his son with attention, and been brought up tocommence letters to their fathers, "Honored Parent, " signing themselves"Your humble servant and respectful son. " There are a few such oldgentlemen still to be found in the more conservative clubs, where certainwindows are tacitly abandoned to these elegant-mannered fossils. Theyare 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 mentalmachinery so long to get working! Washington possesses a particularlyfine collection among the retired army and navy officers andex-officials. It is a fact well known that no one drawing a pension everdies. 

About 1875, a new generation with new manners began to make itsappearance. A number of its members had been educated at Englishuniversities, and came home burning to upset old ways and teach theirelders how to live. They broke away from the old clubs and startedsmaller and more exclusive circles among themselves, principally in thecountry. This was a period of bad manners. True to their English model, they considered it "good form" to be uncivil and to make no efforttowards the general entertainment when in society. Not to speak morethan a word or two during a dinner party to either of one's neighbors wasthe supreme _chic_. As a revolt from the twice-told tales of theirelders they held it to be "bad form" to tell a story, no matter how freshand amusing it might be. An unfortunate outsider who ventured to tellone in their club was crushed by having his tale received in deadsilence. 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 toamuse them. How the professional story-teller must have shuddered--hewhose story never was ripe until it had been told a couple of hundredtimes, and who would produce a certain tale at a certain course as surelyas clock-work. 

That the story-telling type was a bore, I grant. To be grabbed onentering your club and obliged to listen to Smith's last, or to have theconversation after dinner monopolized by Jones and his eternal "Speakingof coffee, I remember once, " etc. Added an additional hardship toexistence. But the opposite pose, which became the fashion among thereformers, was hardly less wearisome. To sit among a group of perfectlymute men, with an occasional word dropping into the silence like a stonein a well, was surely little better. 

A girl told me she had once sat through an entire cotillion with a youthwhose only remark during the evening had been (after absorbedcontemplation 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 hiseyes 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 poseof never seeing you, which got on the nerves of his elders to aconsiderable extent. If he came into a drawing-room where you weresitting with a lady, he would shake hands with her and begin aconversation, ignoring your existence, although you may have been hisguest at dinner the night before, or he yours. This was also a tenet ofhis creed borrowed from trans-Atlantic cousins, who, by the bye, duringthe time I speak of, found America, and especially our Eastern states, ahappy hunting-ground, --all the clubs, country houses, and societygenerally opening their doors to the "sesame" of English nationality. Ittook our innocent youths a good ten years to discover that there was noreciprocity in the arrangement; it was only in the next epoch (the listof the three referred to) that our men recovered their self-respect, andassumed towards foreigners in general the attitude of polite indifferencewhich is their manner to us when abroad. Nothing could have been moreprovincial and narrow than the ideas of our "smart" men at that time. They congregated in little cliques, huddling together in public, andcracking personal old jokes; but were speechless with _mauvaise honte_ ifthrown among foreigners or into other circles of society. All this isnot to be wondered at considering the amount of their general educationand reading. One charming little custom then greatly in vogue among our_jeunesse doree_ was to remain at a ball, after the other guests hadretired, tipsy, and then break anything that came to hand. It was soamusing to throw china, glass, or valuable plants, out of the windows, tostrip to the waist and box or bait the tired waiters. 

I look at the boys growing up around me with sincere admiration, they areso superior to their predecessors in breeding, in civility, in deferenceto older people, and in a thousand other little ways that mark high-bredmen. The stray Englishman, of no particular standing at home no longerfinds our men eager to entertain him, to put their best "hunter" at hisdisposition, to board, lodge, and feed him indefinitely, or make himhonorary member of all their clubs. It is a constant source of pleasureto me to watch this younger generation, so plainly do I see in them theinfluence of their mothers--women I knew as girls, and who were so farahead of their brothers and husbands in refinement and culture. To haveseen these girls marry and bring up their sons so well has been asatisfaction and a compensation for many disillusions. Woman's influencewill always remain the strongest lever that can be brought to bear inraising the tone of a family; it is impossible not to see about theseyoung men a reflection of what we found so charming in their mothers. Onedespairs at times of humanity, seeing vulgarity and snobbishness ridingtriumphantly upward; but where the tone of the younger generation is ashigh 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 thegood fortune to meet again an old friend, now for some years retired fromthe stage, where she had by her charm and beauty, as well as by hersinging, held all the Parisian world at her pretty feet. 

Our meeting was followed on her part by an invitation to take luncheonwith 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, " inFrance) the following day found me entering a shady drawing-room, where afew people were sitting in the cool half-light that strayed across from acanvas-covered balcony furnished with plants and low chairs. Beyond onecaught a glimpse of perhaps the gayest picture that the bright city ofParis 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 splendidcolonnade of the Madeleine. The rattle of carriages, the roll of theheavy omnibuses and the shrill cries from the street below floated up, softened into a harmonious murmur that in no way interfered with ourconversation, and is sweeter than the finest music to those who lovetheir Paris. 

Five or six rooms _en suite_ opening on the street, and as many more on alarge court, formed the apartment, where everything betrayed the_artiste_ and the singer. The walls, hung with silk or tapestry, held acollection of original drawings and paintings, a fortune in themselves;the dozen portraits of our hostess in favorite roles were by men great inthe art world; a couple of pianos covered with well-worn music andnumberless photographs signed with names that would have made anautograph-fiend's mouth water. 

After a gracious, cooing welcome, more whispered than spoken, I waspresented to the guests I did not know. Before this ceremony was wellover, 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_. Itmay amuse my readers and serve, perhaps, as a little object lesson tothose at home who imagine that quantity and not quality is of importance. 

Our gracious hostess had earned a fortune in her profession (and I amtold that two _chefs_ preside over her simple meals); so it was not aspirit of economy which dictated this simplicity. At first, _horsd'oeuvres_ were served, --all sorts of tempting little things, --very thinslices of ham, spiced sausages, olives and caviar, and eaten--not merelypassed and refused. Then came the one hot dish of the meal. "One!" Ithink I hear my reader exclaim. Yes, my friend, but that one was amarvel in its way. Chicken _a l'espagnole_, boiled, and buried in riceand tomatoes cooked whole--a dish to be dreamed of and remembered inone's prayers and thanksgivings! After at least two helpings each tothis _chef-d'oeuvre_, cold larded fillet and a meat _pate_ were servedwith 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 whichchampagne is made (by a chemical process and the addition of manyinjurious ingredients); in other words, a pure _brut_ champagne with justa suggestion of sparkle at the bottom of your glass. All the party thenmigrated together into the smoking-room for cigarettes, coffee, and atiny glass of _liqueur_. 

These details have been given at length, not only because the meal seemedto me, while I was eating it, to be worthy of whole columns of print, butbecause one of the besetting sins of our dear land is to serve aprofusion of food no one wants and which the hostess would never havedreamed of ordering had she been alone. 

Nothing is more wearisome than to sit at table and see course aftercourse, good, bad, and indifferent, served, after you have eaten what youwant. And nothing is more vulgar than to serve them; for either a guestrefuses a great deal of the food and appears uncivil, or he must eat, andregret it afterwards. If we ask people to a meal, it should be to suchas we eat, as a general thing, ourselves, and such as they would have athome. Otherwise it becomes ostentation and vulgarity. Why should one beexpelled to eat more than usual because a friend has been nice enough toask one to take one's dinner with him, instead of eating it alone? It isthe being among friends that tempts, not the food; the fact at skilfulwaiters have been able to serve a dozen varieties of fish, flesh, andfowl during the time you were at table has added little to any one'spleasure. On the contrary! Half the time one eats from pure absence ofmind, 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 cheerfullytogether on soup, a cut of the joint, a dessert, and drink a pint ofclaret. But if either Mrs. Smith or Mrs. Jones asks me to dinner, wehave eight courses and half as many wines, and Smith will say quitegravely to me, "Try this '75 'Perrier Jouet', " as if he were in the habitof drinking it daily. It makes me smile, for he would as soon think ofordering a bottle of that wine at the club as he would think of orderinga flask of nectar. 

But to return to our "mutton. " As we had none of us eaten too much (andso become digesting machines), we were cheerful and sprightly. A littlemusic followed and an author repeated some of his poetry. I noticed thatduring the hour before we broke up our hostess contrived to have a littletalk with each of her guests, which she made quite personal, appearingfor 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 awell-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 shouldbe made to feel, if you wish him to go away with a pleasant remembranceof the entertainment, that his presence has in some way added to it andbeen a personal pleasure to his host. 

A good soul that all New York knew a few years ago, whose entertainmentswere 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 hundredand seventy-five people here this Thursday, ten more than last week, "with such a satisfied smile, that you felt that she had little left towish for, and found yourself wondering just which number you representedin her mind. When you entered she must have murmured a numeral toherself as she shook your hand. 

There is more than one house in New York where I have grave doubts if thehost and hostess are quite sure of my name when I dine there; after anabstracted welcome, they rarely put themselves out to entertain theirguests. Black coats and evening dresses alternate in pleasingperspective 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 givethemselves no further trouble. 

Why does not some one suggest to these amphitrions to send fifteendollars in prettily monogrammed envelopes to each of their friends, requesting them to expend it on a dinner. The compliment would be quiteas personal, and then the guests might make up little parties to suitthemselves, which would be much more satisfactory than going "in" withsome one chosen at hazard from their host's visiting list, and lessfatiguing to that gentleman and his family. 

No. 33--The Introducer

We all suffer more or less from the perennial "freshness" of certainacquaintances--tiresome people whom a misguided Providence has endowedwith over-flowing vitality and an irrepressible love of their fellowmen, and who, not content with looking on life as a continual "spree, " insiston making others happy in spite of themselves. Their name is legion andtheir presence ubiquitous, but they rarely annoy as much as whendisguised under the mask of the "Introducer. " In his clutches one ishelpless. It is impossible to escape from such philanthropic tyranny. He, in his freshness, imagines that to present human beings to each otheris his mission in this world and moves through life making these platonicunions, 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 sureto 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 hourbefore, but whom he endows out of the warehouse of his generousimagination with several talents and all the virtues. In order to makethe situation just one shade more uncomfortable, this kindly boreproceeds 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 phraseneatly calculated to nip any conversation in the bud. You detest theunoffending stranger on the spot and would like to kill the bore. Not toappear an absolute brute you struggle through some commonplace phrases, discovering the while that your new acquaintance is no more anxious toknow you, than you are to meet him; that he has not the slightest ideawho you are, neither does he desire to find out. He classes you with thebore, and his one idea, like your own, is to escape. So that the onlyresult of the Introducer's good-natured interference has been to make twofellow-creatures miserable. 

A friend was telling me the other day of the martyrdom he had sufferedfrom this class. He spoke with much feeling, as he is the soul ofamiability, but somewhat short-sighted and afflicted with a hopelesslybad memory for faces. For the last few years, he has been in the habitof spending one or two of the winter months in Washington, where hisfriends put him up at one club or another. Each winter on his firstappearance at one of these clubs, some kindly disposed old fogy is sureto present him to a circle of the members, and he finds himselfindiscriminately shaking hands with Judges and Colonels. As little or noconversation follows these introductions to fix the individuality of themembers in his mind, he unconsciously cuts two-thirds of his newlyacquired circle the next afternoon, and the following winter, after a ten-months' absence, he innocently ignores the other third. So hopelesslyhas he offended in this way, that last season, on being presented to aclub member, the latter peevishly blurted out:

"This is the fourth time I have been introduced to Mr. Blank, but henever remembers me, " and glared coldly at him, laying it all down to myfriend's snobbishness and to the airs of a New Yorker when away fromhome. If instead of being sacrificed to the introducer's mistaken zealmy poor friend had been left quietly to himself, he would in good timehave met the people congenial to him and avoided giving offence to anumber 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 herdrawing-room are not made known to each other. No matter how interestedyou may be in a chat with a friend, you will see her bearing down uponyou, bringing in tow the one human being you have carefully avoided foryears. Escape seems impossible, but as a forlorn hope you fling yourselfinto conversation with your nearest neighbor, trying by your absorbedmanner to ward off the calamity. In vain! With a tap on your elbow yoursmiling hostess introduces you and, having spoiled your afternoon, flitsoff in search of other prey. 

The question of introductions is one on which it is impossible to laydown any fixed rules. There must constantly occur situations where one'sacts must depend upon a kindly consideration for other people's feelings, which after all, is only another name for tact. Nothing so plainly showsthe breeding of a man or woman as skill in solving problems of this kindwithout giving offence. 

Foreigners, with their greater knowledge of the world, rarely fall intothe error of indiscriminate introducing, appreciating what a presentationmeans and what obligations it entails. The English fall into exactly thecontrary error from ours, and carry it to absurd lengths. Starting withthe assumption that everybody knows everybody, and being aware of thegeneral dread of meeting "detrimentals, " they avoid the difficulty bymaking no introductions. This may work well among themselves, but it istrying to a stranger whom they have been good enough to ask to theirtables, to sit out the meal between two people who ignore his presenceand converse across him; for an Englishman will expire sooner than speakto a person to whom he has not been introduced. 

The French, with the marvellous tact that has for centuries made them thelaw-givers on all subjects of etiquette and breeding, have another way ofavoiding useless introductions. They assume that two people meeting in adrawing-room belong to the same world and so chat pleasantly with thosearound 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 thelady who had offered him a cup of tea and talked pleasantly to him overit 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 AmericanGeographical Society. No sooner was I seated than my two neighborsturned towards me mentioning their names and waiting for me to do thesame. After that the conversation flowed on as among friends. Thiscustom struck me as exceedingly well-bred and calculated to make aforeigner feel at his ease. 

Among other curious types, there are people so constituted that they areunhappy if a single person can be found in the room to whom they have notbeen introduced. It does not matter who the stranger may be or whatchance there is of finding him congenial. They must be presented;nothing else will content them. If you are chatting with a friend youfeel a pull at your sleeve, and in an audible aside, they ask for anintroduction. The aspirant will then bring up and present the members ofhis family who happen to be near. After that he seems to be at ease, andhaving absolutely nothing to say will soon drift off. Our public mensuffer terribly from promiscuous introductions; it is a part of apolitical career; a good memory for names and faces and a cordial mannerunder fire have often gone a long way in floating a statesman on tosuccess. 

Demand, we are told, creates supply. During a short stay in a Floridahotel last winter, I noticed a curious little man who looked like a crossbetween a waiter and a musician. As he spoke to me several times andseemed very officious, I asked who he was. The answer was so grotesquethat I could not believe my ears. I was told that he held the positionof official "introducer, " or master of ceremonies, and that the guestsunder his guidance became known to each other, danced, rode, and marriedto their own and doubtless to his satisfaction. The further west onegoes the more pronounced this mania becomes. Everybody is introduced toeverybody on all imaginable occasions. If a man asks you to take adrink, he presents you to the bar-tender. If he takes you for a drive, the cab-driver is introduced. "Boots" makes you acquainted with thechambermaid, and the hotel proprietor unites you in the bonds offriendship with the clerk at the desk. Intercourse with one's fellowsbecomes one long debauch of introduction. In this country where everyliberty is respected, it is a curious fact that we should be denied themost 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 faintperfume of _violette de Parme_, was part of the morning's mail that Ifound lying on my desk a few days ago, in delightful contrast to thebills and advertisements which formed the bulk of my correspondence. Itwould suppose a stoicism greater than I possess, not to have felt athrill of satisfaction in its perusal. There was, then, some one whoread with pleasure what I wrote, and who had been moved to consult me ona question (evidently to her) of importance. I instantly decided to domy best for the edification of my fair correspondent (for no doubtentered my head that she was both young and fair), the more readilybecause that very question had frequently presented itself to my own mindon observing the very capricious choice of Dame "Fashion" in thedistribution of her favors. 

That there are people who succeed brilliantly and move from success tosuccess, amid an applauding crowd of friends and admirers, while others, apparently their superiors in every way, are distanced in the race, is anundeniable fact. You have but to glance around the circle of youracquaintances and relations to be convinced of this anomaly. To areflecting mind the question immediately presents itself, Why is this?General society is certainly cultivated enough to appreciate intelligenceand superior endowments. How then does it happen that the socialfavorites are so often lacking in the qualities which at a first glancewould seem indispensable to success?

Before going any further let us stop a moment, and look at the subjectfrom another side, for it is more serious than appears to be on thesurface. To be loved by those around us, to stand well in the world, iscertainly the most legitimate as well as the most common of ambitions, aswell as the incentive to most of the industry and perseverance in life. Aside from science, which is sometimes followed for itself alone, andvirtue, which we are told looks for no other reward, the hope whichinspires a great deal of the persistent efforts we see, is generally thatof raising one's self and those one loves by one's efforts into a spherehigher than where cruel fate had placed them; that they, too, may taketheir place in the sunshine and enjoy the good things of life. Thisambition is often purely disinterested; a life of hardest toil ischeerfully borne, with the hope (for sole consolation) that dear oneswill profit later by all the work, and live in a circle the patienttoiler never dreams of entering. Surely he is a stern moralist who woulddeny this satisfaction to the breadwinner of a family. 

There are doubtless many higher motives in life, more elevated goalstoward which struggling humanity should strive. If you examine theaverage mind, however, you will be pretty sure to find that success isthe touchstone by which we judge our fellows and what, in our hearts, weadmire the most. That is not to be wondered at, either, for we have doneall we can to implant it there. From a child's first opening thought, itis 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? Andyet humility is a virtue we admire in the abstract. Are any of uswilling to step aside and see our inferiors pass us in the race? That istoo much to ask of poor humanity. Were other and higher standards to beaccepted, the structure of civilization as it exists to-day would crumbleaway and the great machine run down. 

In returning to my correspondent and her perfectly legitimate desire toknow the road to success, we must realize that to a large part of theworld social success is the only kind they understand. The greatinventors and benefactors of mankind live too far away on a plane bythemselves 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 countrywhere caste has never existed, the social world seems to hold outalluring and tangible gifts to him who can enter its enchanted portals. Even politics, to judge by the actions of some of our legislators, oflate, would seem to be only a stepping-stone to its door!

"But my question, " I hear my fair interlocutor saying. "You are notanswering it!"

All in good time, my dear. I am just about to do so. Did you ever hearof Darwin and his theory of "selection?" It would be a slight to yourintelligence not to take it for granted that you had. Well, myobservations in the world lead me to believe that we follow thereunconsciously, the same rules that guide the wild beasts in the forest. Certain individuals are endowed by nature with temperaments which makethem take naturally to a social life and shine there. In it they findtheir natural element. They develop freely just where others shrivel upand disappear. There is continually going on unseen a "naturalselection, " the discarding of unfit material, the assimilation of new andcongenial elements from outside, with the logical result of a survival ofthe fittest. Aside from this, you will find in "the world, " as anywhereelse, that the person who succeeds is generally he who has been willingto give the most of his strength and mind to that one object, and has notallowed the flowers on the hillside to distract him from his path, remembering also that genius is often but the "capacity for takinginfinite pains. "

There are people so constituted that they cheerfully give the efforts ofa lifetime to the attainment of a brilliant social position. No fatigueis too great, and no snubs too bitter to be willingly undergone inpursuit of the cherished object. You will never find such an individual, for instance, wandering in the flowery byways that lead to art orletters, for that would waste his time. If his family are too hard toraise, he will abandon the attempt and rise without them, for he cannothelp himself. He is but an atom working as blindly upward as the plantthat pushes its mysterious way towards the sun. Brains are notnecessary. Good looks are but a trump the more in the "hand. " Mannersmay help, but are not essential. The object can be and is attained dailywithout all three. Wealth is but the oil that makes the machinery runmore smoothly. The all-important factor is the desire to succeed, sostrong that it makes any price seem cheap, and that can pay itself by astep gained, for mortification and weariness and heart-burnings. 

There, my dear, is the secret of success! I stop because I feel myselfbecoming bitter, and that is a frame of mind to be carefully avoided, because it interferes with the digestion and upsets one's gentle calm! Ihave tried to answer your question. The answer resolves itself intothese two things; that it is necessary to be born with qualities whichyou may not possess, and calls for sacrifices you would doubtless beunwilling to make. It remains with you to decide if the little game isworth the candle. The delightful common sense I feel quite sure youpossess reassures me as to your answer. 

Take gayly such good things as may float your way, and profit by themwhile 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 inthe heat of the day, as your spirit prompts you. Sit down before thesunset and revel in its beauty and you will find your voyage through lifemuch more satisfactory to look back to and full of far sweeter memoriesthan if by sacrificing any of these pleasures you had attained thegreatest of "positions. "

No. 35--Living on your Friends

Thackeray devoted a chapter in "Vanity Fair" to the problem "How to LiveWell on Nothing a Year. " It was neither a very new nor a very ingeniousexpedient that "Becky" resorted to when she discounted her husband'sposition and connection to fleece the tradespeople and cheat an oldfamily servant out of a year's rent. The author might more justly haveused his clever phrase in describing "Major Pendennis's" agreeableexistence. We have made great progress in this, as in almost every othermode of living, in the latter half of the Victorian era; intelligentindividuals of either sex, who know the ropes, can now as easily lead theexistence of a multi-millionaire (with as much satisfaction to themselvesand their friends) as though the bank account, with all its attendantworries, stood in their own names. This subject is so vast, itsramifications so far-reaching and complicated, that one hesitates beforelaunching into an analysis of it. It will be better simply to give a fewinteresting examples, and a general rule or two, for the enlightenmentand guidance of ingenious souls. 

Human nature changes little; all that our educational and social traininghas accomplished is a smoothing of the surface. One of the most strikingproofs of this is, that here in our primitive country, as soon asaccumulation 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 inwaiting, pages and jesters. Nature abhors a vacuum, so a class of peopleimmediately felt an irresistible impulse to rush in and fill the void. Our aristocrats were not even obliged to send abroad to fill thesevacancies, as they were for their footmen and butlers; the native articlewas quite ready and willing and, considering the little practice it couldhave had, proved wonderfully adapted to the work. 

When the mania for building immense country houses and yachts (the owningof opera boxes goes a little further back) first attacked this country, the builders imagined that, once completed, it would be the easiest, aswell as the most delightful task to fill them with the pick of theirfriends, that they could get all the talented and agreeable people theywanted by simply making a sign. To their astonishment, they discoveredthat what appeared so simple was a difficult, as well as a thanklesslabor. I remember asking a lady who had owned a "proscenium" at the oldAcademy, 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 inmy box, I intend now to rest. " It is very much the same thing withyachts. A couple who had determined to go around the world, in theirlately finished boat, were dumbfounded to find their invitations were noteagerly accepted. After exhausting the small list of people they reallywanted, they began with others indifferent to them, and even then filledout their number with difficulty. A hostess who counts on a series ofhouse parties through the autumn months, must begin early in the summerif she is to have the guests she desires. 

It is just here that the "professional, " if I may be allowed to use suchan expression, comes to the front. He is always available. It isindifferent to him if he starts on a tour around the world or for awinter spree to Montreal. He is always amusing, good-humored, and can becounted on at the last moment to fill any vacant place, without being theleast offended at the tardy invitation, for he belongs to the class whohave discovered "how to live well on nothing a year. " Luxury is as thebreath 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 sternmoralists, and throw stones at him; for there may enter more "best Frenchplate" 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 ofhospitality, or, if occasionally a small "batrachian" is offered, it isso well disguised by an accomplished _chef_, and served on such exquisiteold Dresden, that it slips down with very little effort. Even thisrarely occurs, unless the guest has allowed himself to become the inmateof a residence or yacht. Then he takes his chance with other members ofthe household, and if the host or hostess happens to have a bad temper asa 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 shadeof difference. As an unmarried woman is in less general demand, she isapt to attach herself to one dear friend, always sure to be a lady inpossession of fine country and city houses and other appurtenances ofwealth, often of inferior social standing; so that there is give andtake, the guest rendering real service to an ambitious hostess. Thefeminine aspirant need not be handsome. On the contrary, an agreeableplainness is much more acceptable, serving as a foil. But she must beexcellent in all games, from golf to piquet, and willing to play as oftenand as long as required. She must also cheerfully go in to dinner withthe blue ribbon bore of the evening, only asked on account of his prettywife (by the bye, why is it that Beauty is so often flanked by theBeast?), and sit between him and the "second prize" bore. These twoworthies would have been the portion of the hostess fifteen years ago;she would have considered it her duty to absorb them and prevent herother guests suffering. _Mais nous avons change tout cela_. The lady ofthe house now thinks first of amusing herself, and arranges to sitbetween two favorites. 

Society has become much simpler, and especially less expensive, forunmarried men than it used to be. Even if a hostess asks a favor inreturn for weeks of hospitality, the sacrifice she requires of a man israrely greater than a cotillion with an unattractive debutante whom sheis trying to launch; or the sitting through a particularly dull opera inorder to see her to the carriage, her lord and master having slipped offearly to his club and a quiet game of pool. Many people who read theselines are old enough to remember that prehistoric period when unmarriedgirls went to the theatre and parties, alone with the men they knew. Thiscustom still prevails in our irrepressible West. It was an arrangementby which all the expenses fell on the man--theatre tickets, carriages ifit rained, and often a bit of supper after. If a youth asked a girl todance the cotillion, he was expected to send a bouquet, sure to costbetween twenty and twenty-five dollars. What a blessed change for theimpecunious swell when all this went out of fashion! New York is hisparadise now; in other parts of the world something is still expected ofhim. In France it takes the form of a handsome bag of bon-bons on NewYear's Day, if he has accepted hospitality during the past year. Whilehere he need do absolutely nothing (unless he wishes to), the occasionalleaving 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 beingpractically impossible for any one working at a serious profession to situp night after night, even if he desired), and at the same time so manywomen insist on entertaining to amuse themselves or better theirposition, that the men who go about get spoiled and almost come toconsider the obligation conferred, when they dine out. There is no moreamusing sight than poor paterfamilias sitting in the club between six andseven P. M. Pretending to read the evening paper, but really with his eveon the door; he has been sent down by his wife to "get a man, " as she isone short for her dinner this evening. He must be one who will fit inwell with the other guests; hence papa's anxious look, and the reason theeditorial gets so little of his attention! Watch him as young"professional" lounges in. There is just his man--if he only happens tobe disengaged! You will see "Pater" cross the room and shake hands, then, after a few minutes' whispered conversation, he will walk down tohis coupe with such a relieved look on his face. Young "professional, "who is in faultless evening dress, will ring for a cocktail and take upthe 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 peopleasking each other, "Whom are we waiting for?" when the door opens, and heis announced. He will stay a moment after the other guests have gone andreceive the most cordial pressures of the hand from a grateful hostess(if not spoken words of thanks) in return for eating an exquisitelycooked dinner, seated between two agreeable women, drinkingirreproachable wine, smoking a cigar, and washing the whole down with aglass of 1830 brandy, or some priceless historic madeira. 

There is probably a moral to be extracted from all this. But frankly myethics are so mixed that I fail to see where the blame lies, and which isthe less worthy individual, the ostentatious axe-grinding host or theinterested guest. One thing, however, I see clearly, viz. , that life isvery agreeable to him who starts in with few prejudices, good manners, alarge amount of well-concealed "cheek" and the happy faculty of takingthings 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 ofpeople who should know better. In reality these societies do not exist. Does my reader pause, wondering if he can believe his eyes? He hasdoubtless heard all his life of these delightful circles, and believes inthem. He may even have dined, _en passant_, at the "palace" of someresident compatriot in Rome or Florence, under the impression that he waswithin its mystic limits. Illusion! An effect of mirage, making thatwhich appears quite tangible and solid when viewed from a distancedissolve into thin air as one approaches; like the mirage, cheating theweary traveller with a vision of what he most longs for. 

Forty, even fifty years ago, there lived in Rome a group of veryagreeable people; Story and the two Greenoughs and Crawford, the sculptor(father of the brilliant novelist of to-day); Charlotte Cushman (whodivided her time between Rome and Newport), and her friend Miss Stebbins, the sculptress, to whose hands we owe the bronze fountain on the Mall inour Park; Rogers, then working at the bronze doors of our capitol, andmany other cultivated and agreeable people. Hawthorne passed a couple ofwinters 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 thefirst to note the exotic grace of an American girl in that strangesetting. They formed as transcendental and unworldly a group as evergathered about a "tea" table. Great things were expected of them andtheir influence, but they disappointed the world, and, with the exceptionof Hawthorne, are being fast forgotten. 

Nothing could be simpler than life in the papal capital in those pleasantdays. Money was rare, but living as delightfully inexpensive. It wasabout that time, if I do not mistake, that a list was published in NewYork of the citizens worth one hundred thousand dollars; and it was not along one! The Roman colony took "tea" informally with each other, and"received" on stated evenings in their studios (when mulled claret andcakes were the only refreshment offered; very bad they were, too), andmigrated in the summer to the mountains near Rome or to Sorrento. In thewinter months their circle was enlarged by a contingent from home. Amongwealthy New Yorkers, it was the fashion in the early fifties to pass awinter in Rome, when, together with his other dissipations, paterfamiliaswould sit to one of the American sculptors for his bust, which accountsfor the horrors one now runs across in dark corners of countryhouses, --ghostly heads in "chin whiskers" and Roman draperies. 

The son of one of these pioneers, more rich than cultivated, noticed theother day, while visiting a friend of mine, an exquisiteeighteenth-century bust of Madame de Pompadour, the pride of hishostess'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 andput it in my parlor. "

The travellers consulted the residents in their purchases of copies ofthe old masters, for there were fashions in these luxuries as ineverything else. There was a run at that time on the "Madonna in theChair;" and "Beatrice Cenci" was long prime favorite. Thousands of thelatter leering and winking over her everlasting shoulder, were solemnlysent home each year. No one ever dreamed of buying an original painting!The tourists also developed a taste for large marble statues, "Nydia, theBlind Girl of Pompeii" (people read Bulwer, Byron and the Bible then)being in such demand that I knew one block in lower Fifth Avenue thatpossessed seven blind Nydias, all life-size, in white marble, --a form ofdecoration about as well adapted to those scanty front parlors as a steamengine or a carriage and pair would have been. I fear Bulwer's heroineis at a discount now, and often wonder as I see those old residencesturning into shops, what has become of the seven white elephants and alltheir brothers and sisters that our innocent parents brought so proudlyback from Italy! I have succeeded in locating two statues evidentlyimported at that time. They grace the back steps of a rather shabbyvilla 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 thecircle that inaugurated them. About 1867 a few rich New Yorkers began"trying to know the Italians" and go about with them. One family, "up tosnuff" in more senses than one, married their daughter to the scion of aprincely house, and immediately a large number of her compatriots werebitten with the madness of going into Italian society. 

In 1870, Rome became the capital of united Italy. The court removedthere. The "improvements" began. Whole quarters were remodelled, andthe dear old Rome of other days, the Rome of Hawthorne and Madame deStael, was swept away. With this new state of things came a number ofAmerico-Italian marriages more or less successful; and anything like anAmerican society, properly so-called, disappeared. To-day families ofour compatriots passing the winter months in Rome are either tourists wholive in hotels, and see sights, or go (as far as they can) into Italiansociety. 

The Queen of Italy, who speaks excellent English, developed a _penchant_for Americans, and has attached several who married Italians to herperson 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 isbitter still between the "Blacks" and "Whites, " and an American girl whomarries into one of these circles must make up her mind to see nothing offriends or relatives in the opposition ranks. It is said that anamalgamation is being brought about, but it is slow work; a generationwill have to die out before much real mingling of the two courts willtake place. As both these circles are poor, very little entertainmentgoes on. One sees a little life in the diplomatic world, and the Kingand Queen give a ball or two during the winter, but since the repeateddefeats of the Italian arms in Africa, and the heavy financialdifficulties (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 brideof the heir-apparent, a lady who is credited with being full of fun andlife; it is fondly imagined that she will set the ball rolling again. Bythe bye, her first lady-in-waiting, the young Duchess del Monte ofNaples, was an American girl, and a very pretty one, too. She enjoyedfor some time the enviable distinction of being the youngest andhandsomest duchess in Europe, until Miss Vanderbilt married Marlboroughand took the record from her. The Prince and Princess of Naples live attheir 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 fondof 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 forspeculation that turned all Rome upside down in the years following 1870and Italian unity, when they naively imagined their new capital was tobecome again after seventeen centuries the metropolis of the world. Wholequarters of new houses were run up for a population that failed toappear; these houses now stand empty and are fast going to ruin. So thatlittle in the way of entertaining is to be expected from the bankrupts. They are a genial race, these Italian nobles, and welcome rich strangersand marry them with much enthusiasm--just a shade too much, perhaps--thegirl counting for so little and her _dot_ for so much in the matrimonialscale. It is only necessary to keep open house to have the pick of theyounger ones as your guests. They will come to entertainments atAmerican houses and bring all their relations, and dance, and dine, andflirt with great good humor and persistency; but if there is not a goodsolid fortune in the background, in the best of securities, the prettiestAmerican smiles never tempt them beyond flirtation; the season over, theydisappear up into their mountain villas to wait for a new importationfrom 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 willyou not find them?), living quietly for study or economy. But they arenot numerous or united enough to form a society; and are apt to beinvolved 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 tinyGerman watering-place, principally frequented by English, who were allliving together in great peace and harmony, until one fatal day, when anEarl 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 knewthe Earl and those who did not. And peace fled from our little society. You will find in every foreign capital among the resident Americans, justsuch a state of affairs as convulsed that German spa. The native"swells" have come to be the apple of discord that divides our goodpeople among themselves. Those who have been successful in knowing theforeigners avoid their compatriots and live with their new friends, whilethe other group who, from laziness, disinclination, or principle (?) haveremained true to their American circle, cannot resist calling the otherssnobs, and laughing (a bit enviously, perhaps) at their upward struggles. 

It is the same in Florence. The little there was left of an Americansociety went to pieces on that rock. Our parents forty years ago seem tome to have been much more self-respecting and sensible. They knewperfectly well that there was nothing in common between themselves andthe Italian nobility, and that those good people were not going to putthemselves out to make the acquaintance of a lot of strangers, mostly ofanother religion, unless it was to be materially to their advantage. Sothey left them quietly alone. I do not pretend to judge any one'smotives, but confess I cannot help regarding with suspicion a foreignerwho leaves his own circle to mingle with strangers. It resembles tooclosely the amiabilities of the wolf for the lamb, or the suddenpoliteness of a school-boy to a little girl who has received a box ofcandies. 

No. 37--The Newport of the Past

Few of the "carriage ladies and gentlemen" who disport themselves inNewport during the summer months, yachting and dancing through the shortseason, then flitting away to fresh fields and pastures new, realize thattheir daintily shod feet have been treading historic ground, or care tocast a thought back to the past. Oddly enough, to the majority of peoplethe 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 yellowleaves and point out the pictures to them. Few of the human motes thatdance in the rays of the afternoon sun as they slant across the littlePark, think of the fable which asserts that a sea-worn band ofadventurous men, centuries before the Cabots or the Genoese discovererthought of crossing the Atlantic, had pushed bravely out over untriedseas and landed on this rocky coast. Yet one apparent evidence of theirstay tempts our thoughts back to the times when it is said to have beenbuilt as a bower for a king's daughter. Longfellow, in the swingingverse of his "Skeleton in Armor, " breathing of the sea and the Norseman'sfatal love, has thrown such a glamour of poetry around the tower, thatone would fain believe all he relates. The hardy Norsemen, if they evercame here, succumbed in their struggle with the native tribes, or, discouraged by death and hardships, sailed away, leaving the clouds ofoblivion to close again darkly around this continent, and the fog ofdiscussion to circle around the "Old Mill. "

The little settlement of another race, speaking another tongue, thatcenturies later sprang up in the shadow of the tower, quickly grew into abusy and prosperous city, which, like New York, its rival, was capturedand held by the English. To walk now through some of its quaint, narrowstreets is to step back into Revolutionary days. Hardly a house haschanged since the time when the red coats of the British officersbrightened the prim perspectives, and turned loyal young heads as theypassed. 

At the corner of Spring and Pelham Streets, still stands the residence ofGeneral Prescott, who was carried away prisoner by his opponents, theyhaving rowed down in whale-boats from Providence for the attack. Rochambeau, our French ally, lodged lower down in Mary Street. In thetower of Trinity, one can read the epitaph of the unfortunate Chevalierde Ternay, commander of the sea forces, whose body lies near by. Manyyears later his relative, the Duc de Noailles, when Minister to thiscountry, had this simple tablet repaired and made a visit to the spot. 

A long period of prosperity followed the Revolution, during which Newportgrew and flourished. Our pious and God-fearing "forbears, " havingsecured personal and religious liberty, proceeded to inaugurate a mostsuccessful and remunerative trade in rum and slaves. It was a triangulartransaction and yielded a three-fold profit. The simple population ofthat day, numbering less than ten thousand souls, possessed twentydistilleries; finding it a physical impossibility to drink _all_ the rum, they conceived the happy thought of sending the surplus across to thecoast of Africa, where it appears to have been much appreciated by thenative chiefs, who eagerly exchanged the pick of their loyal subjects forthat liquid. These poor brutes were taken to the West Indies andexchanged for sugar, laden with which, the vessels returned to Newport. 

Having introduced the dusky chieftains to the charms of delirium tremensand their subjects to life-long slavery, one can almost see these piousdeacons proceeding to church to offer up thanks for the return of theirsuccessful 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 andsundry railways struck a blow at Newport commerce, from which it neverrecovered. The city sank into oblivion, and for over thirty years not ahouse was built there. 

It was not until near 1840 that the Middletons and Izzards and otherwealthy and aristocratic Southern families were tempted to Newport by theclimate 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 familiesbegan to appreciate the place, that the first hotels were built, --theAtlantic on the square facing the old mill, the Bellevue and Fillmore onCatherine Street, and finally the original Ocean House, destroyed by firein 1845 and rebuilt as we see it to-day. The croakers of the epochconsidered it much too far out of town to be successful, for at its doorthe open fields began, a gate there separating the town from the countryacross which a straggling, half-made road, closed by innumerable gates, led along the cliffs and out across what is now the Ocean Drive. Theprincipal roads at that time led inland; any one wishing to drive seawardhad to descend every two or three minutes to open a gate. The youth ofthe day discovered a source of income in opening and closing these forpennies. 

Fashion had decreed that the correct hour for dancing was 11 A. M. , and_matinees dansantes_ were regularly given at the hotels, our grandmothersappearing in _decollete_ muslin frocks adorned with broad sashes, anddisporting themselves gayly until the dinner hour. Low-neck dresses werethe rule, not only for these informal entertainments, but as every-daywear for young girls, --an old lady only the other day telling me she hadnever worn a "high-body" until after her marriage. Two o'clock found allthe beauties and beaux dining. How incredulously they would have laughedif any one had prophesied that their grandchildren would prefer eightforty-five as a dinner hour!

The opening of Bellevue Avenue marked another epoch in the history ofNewport. About that time Governor Lawrence bought the whole of OchrePoint farm for fourteen thousand dollars, and Mr. De Rham built on thenewly opened road the first "cottage, " which stands to-day modestly backfrom the avenue opposite Perry Street. If houses have souls, asHawthorne averred, and can remember and compare, what curious thoughtsmust pass through the oaken brain of this simple construction as it seesits 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 (thesecond summer residence in the place) it is doubtful if a single treebroke the rocky monotony of the landscape from the Ocean House toBateman'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 tobuild a stone wall between the two properties down to the water's edge. The population of Newport had been accustomed to take their Sundayairings and moonlight rambles along "the cliffs, " and viewed thisobstruction of their favorite walk with dismay. So strong was theirfeeling that when the wall was completed the young men of the townrepaired there in the night and tore it down. It was rebuilt, the mortarbeing mixed with broken glass. This infuriated the people to such anextent that the whole populace, in broad daylight, accompanied by thesummer visitors, destroyed the wall and threw the materials into the sea. Lawrence, bent on maintaining what he considered his rights, called thelaw to his aid. It was then discovered that an immemorial riverain rightgave the fishermen and the public generally, access to the shore forfishing, and also to collect seaweed, --a right of way that no one couldobstruct. 

This was the beginning of the long struggle between the cliff-dwellersand the townspeople; each new property-owner, disgusted at the idea thatall the world can stroll at will across his well-kept lawns, has in turntried his hand at suppressing the now famous "walk. " Not only do thepublic claim the liberty to walk there, but also the right to cross anyproperty to get to the shore. At this moment the city fathers and thecommittee of the new buildings at Bailey's Beach are wrangling as gaylyas in Governor Lawrence's day over a bit of wall lately constructedacross the end of Bellevue Avenue. A new expedient has been hit upon bysome of the would-be exclusive owners of the cliffs; they have loweredthe "walk" out of sight, thus insuring their own privacy and in no wayinterfering with the rights of the public. 

Among the gentlemen who settled in Newport about Governor Lawrence's timewas Lord Baltimore (Mr. Calvert, he preferred to call himself), whoremained there until his death. He was shy of referring to his Englishpeerage, but would willingly talk of his descent through his mother fromPeter Paul Rubens, from whom had come down to him a chateau in Hollandand several splendid paintings. The latter hung in the parlor of themodest little dwelling, where I was taken to see them and their ownermany years ago. My introducer on this occasion was herself a lady of noordinary birth, being the daughter of Stuart, our greatest portraitpainter. I have passed many quiet hours in the quaint studio (the sameher father had used), hearing her prattle--as she loved to do if shefound a sympathetic listener--of her father, of Washington and hispompous ways, and the many celebrities who had in turn posed beforeStuart's easel. She had been her father's companion and aid, present atthe sittings, preparing his brushes and colors, and painting inbackgrounds and accessories; and would willingly show his palette andexplain his methods and theories of color, his predilection forscrumbling shadows thinly in black and then painting boldly in with bodycolor. Her lessons had not profited much to the gentle, kindly old lady, for the productions of her own brush were far from resembling her greatparent's work. She, however, painted cheerfully on to life's close, surrounded by her many friends, foremost among whom was CharlotteCushman, who also passed the last years of her life in Newport. MissStuart was over eighty when I last saw her, still full of spirit andvigor, beginning the portrait of a famous beauty of that day, since thewife and mother of dukes. 

Miss Stuart's death seems to close one of the chapters in the history ofthis city, and to break the last connecting link with its past. Theworld moves so quickly that the simple days and modest amusements of ourfathers and grandfathers have already receded into misty remoteness. Welook at their portraits and wonder vaguely at their graceless costumes. We know they trod these same streets, and laughed and flirted and marriedas we are doing to-day, but they seem to us strangely far away, likeinhabitants of another sphere!

It is humiliating to think how soon we, too, shall have become theancestors of a new and careless generation; fresh faces will replace ourfaded ones, young voices will laugh as they look at our portraits hangingin dark corners, wondering who we were, and (criticising the apparel wethink so artistic and appropriate) how we could ever have made such guysof ourselves. 

No. 38--A Conquest of Europe

The most important event in modern history is the discovery of Europe bythe Americans. Before it, the peoples of the Old World lived happy andcontented in their own countries, practising the patriarchal virtueshanded down to them from generations of forebears, ignoring alike thevices and benefits of modern civilization, as understood on this side ofthe Atlantic. The simple-minded Europeans remained at home, satisfiedwith the rank in life where they had been born, and innocent of the waysof the new world. 

These peoples were, on the whole, not so much to be pitied, for they hadmany pleasing crafts and arts unknown to the invaders, which had enabledthem to decorate their capitals with taste in a rude way; nothing reallygreat like the lofty buildings and elevated railway structures, executedin 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 theantiquated places of worship and residences they visited abroad, pointingout to their compatriots that in many cases marble, bronze and other old-fashioned materials had been so cleverly treated as to look almost likethe superior cast-iron employed at home, and that some of the oldpaintings, preserved with veneration in the museums, had nearly thebrilliancy of modern chromos. As their authors had, however, neglectedto use a process lending itself to rapid reproduction, they were of nopractical 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 ofadvertising were but little in advance of those known among the ancientGreeks. 

The discovery of Europe by the Americans was made about 1850, at whichdate the first bands of adventurers crossed the seas in search ofamusement. The reports these pioneers brought back of the _naivete_, politeness, and gullibility of the natives, and the cheapness ofexistence in their cities, caused a general exodus from the western tothe eastern hemisphere. Most of the Americans who had used up theircredit at home and those whose incomes were insufficient for their wants, immediately migrated to these happy hunting grounds, where life wasinexpensive 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 havekept them in necessaries on their own side of the Atlantic, and to pickup valuable specimens of native handiwork for nominal sums. In thosehappy days, to belong to the invading race was a sufficient passport tothe good graces of the Europeans, who asked no other guarantees beforetrading with the newcomers, but flocked around them, offering theirservices and their primitive manufactures, convinced that Americans wereall wealthy. 

Alas! History ever repeats itself. As Mexicans and Peruvians, afterreceiving their conquerors with confidence and enthusiasm, came to ruethe day they had opened their arms to strangers, so the European peoples, before a quarter of a century was over, realized that the hordes fromacross the sea who were over-running their lands, raising prices, crowding the native students out of the schools, and finally attemptingto force an entrance into society, had little to recommend them orjustify their presence except money. Even in this some of the intruderswere unsatisfactory. Those who had been received into the "bosom" ofhotels often forgot to settle before departing. The continental womenwho had provided the wives of discoverers with the raiment of the country(a luxury greatly affected by those ladies) found, to their disgust, thattheir new customers were often unable or unwilling to offer anyremuneration. 

In consequence of these and many other disillusions, Americans began tobe called the "Destroyers, " especially when it became known that nothingwas too heavy or too bulky to be carried away by the invaders, who torethe insides from the native houses, the paintings from the walls, thestatues from the temples, and transported this booty across the seas, much in the same way as the Romans had plundered Greece. Elaboratefurniture seemed especially to attract the new arrivals, who acquiredvast quantities of it. 

Here, however, the wily natives (who were beginning to appreciate theirown belongings) had revenge. Immense quantities of worthless imitationswere 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 andarrogant invaders pretended to appreciate and collect. 

Previous to our arrival there had been an invasion of the Continent bythe English about the year 1812. One of their historians, calledThackeray, gives an amusing account of this in the opening chapters ofhis "Shabby Genteel Story. " That event, however, was unimportant incomparison with the great American movement, although both werecharacterized by the same total disregard of the feelings and prejudicesof indigenous populations. The English then walked about the continentalchurches during divine service, gazing at the pictures and consultingtheir guide-books as unconcernedly as our compatriots do to-day. Theyalso crowded into theatres and concert halls, and afterwards wrote to thenewspapers complaining of the bad atmosphere of those primitiveestablishments and of the long _entr'actes_. 

As long as the invaders confined themselves to such trifles, the patientforeigners submitted to their overbearing and uncouth ways because of thesupposed benefit to trade. The natives even went so far as to buildhotels for the accommodation and delight of the invaders, abandoningwhole quarters to their guests. 

There was, however, a point at which complacency stopped. The oldercivilizations had formed among themselves restricted and exclusivesocieties, to which access was almost impossible to strangers. Thesesanctuaries tempted the immigrants, who offered their fairest virgins andmuch treasure for the privilege of admission. The indigenousaristocrats, who were mostly poor, yielded to these offers and a fewAmericans succeeded in forcing an entrance. But the old nobility soonbecame frightened at the number and vulgarity of the invaders, andwithdrew severely into their shells, refusing to accept any furtherbribes either in the form of females or finance. 

From this moment dates the humiliation of the discoverers. All theirbooty and plunder seemed worthless in comparison with the Elysiandelights they imagined were concealed behind the closed doors of thoseholy places, visions of which tortured the women from the westernhemisphere and prevented their taking any pleasure in other victories. Tobe received into those inner circles became their chief ambition. Withthis end in view they dressed themselves in expensive costumes, took thetrouble to learn the "lingo" spoken in the country, went to the extremityof copying the ways of the native women by painting their faces, and inone or two cases imitated the laxity of their morals. 

In spite of these concessions, our women were not received withenthusiasm. On the contrary, the very name of an American became abyword and an abomination in every continental city. This prejudiceagainst us abroad is hardly to be wondered at on reflecting what we havedone to acquire it. The agents chosen by our government to treatdiplomatically with the conquered nations, owe their selection topolitical motives rather than to their tact or fitness. In the largemajority of cases men are sent over who know little either of the habitsor languages prevailing in Europe. 

The worst elements always follow in the wake of discovery. Oursettlements abroad gradually became the abode of the compromised, thedivorced, the socially and financially bankrupt. 

Within the last decade we have found a way to revenge the slights putupon us, especially those offered to Americans in the capital of Gaul. Having for the moment no playwrights of our own, the men who concoctdramas, comedies, and burlesques for our stage find, instead of wearyingthemselves in trying to produce original matter, that it is much simplerto adapt from French writers. This has been carried to such a lengththat entire French plays are now produced in New York signed by Americannames. 

The great French playwrights can protect themselves by taking outAmerican copyright, but if one of them omits this formality, the"conquerors" immediately seize upon his work and translate it, omittingintentionally all mention of the real author on their programmes. Thisseason a play was produced of which the first act was taken from Guy deMaupassant, the second and third "adapted" from Sardou, with episodesintroduced from other authors to brighten the mixture. The piece thuspatched together is signed by a well-known Anglo-Saxon name, and acceptedby our moral public, although the original of the first act was stoppedby the Parisian police as too immoral for that gay capital. 

Of what use would it be to "discover" a new continent unless theexplorers were to reap some such benefits? Let us take every advantagethat our proud position gives us, plundering the foreign authors, makingpenal settlements of their capitals, and ignoring their foolish customsand prejudices when we travel among them! In this way shall weeffectually impress on the inferior races across the Atlantic thegreatness of the American nation. 

No. 39--A Race of Slaves

It is all very well for us to have invaded Europe, and awakened thatsomnolent continent to the lights and delights of American ways; to havebeautified the cities of the old world with graceful trolleys andilluminated the catacombs at Rome with electricity. Every true Americanmust thrill with satisfaction at these achievements, and the knowledgethat he belongs to a dominating race, before which the waningcivilization of Europe must fade away and disappear. 

To have discovered Europe and to rule as conquerors abroad is well, butit is not enough, if we are led in chains at home. It is recorded of acertain ambitious captain whose "Commentaries" made our school-days aburden, that "he preferred to be the first in a village rather thansecond at Rome. " Oddly enough, _we_ are contented to be slaves in ourvillages while we are conquerors in Rome. Can it be that the strugglesof our ancestors for freedom were fought in vain? Did they throw off theyoke of kings, cross the Atlantic, found a new form of government on anew continent, break with traditions, and sign a declaration ofindependence, only that we should succumb, a century later, yielding thefruits of their hard-fought battles with craven supineness into the handsof corporations and municipalities; humbly bowing necks that refuse tobend 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. Wescurried (like good Americans) to the ferry-boat, hot and tired andanxious to get to our destination; a hope deferred, however, for our boatwas kept waiting forty long minutes, because, forsooth, another trainfrom somewhere in the South was behind time. Expostulations were invain. Being only the paying public, we had no rights that thoseautocrats, the officials, were bound to respect. The argument that ifthey knew the southern train to be so much behind, the ferry-boat wouldhave 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. Inorder to make the time pass more pleasantly for the two hundred peoplegathered on the boat, a dusky potentate judged the moment appropriate toscrub the cabin floors. So, aided by a couple of subordinates, heproceeded to deluge the entire place in floods of water, obliging us tosit with our feet tucked up under us, splashing the ladies' skirts andour wraps and belongings. 

Such treatment of the public would have raised a riot anywhere but inthis land of freedom. Do you suppose any one murmured? Not at all. Thewell-trained public had the air of being in church. My neighborsappeared astonished at my impatience, and informed me that they wereoften detained in that way, as the company was short of boats, but theyhoped to have a new one in a year or two. This detail did not preventthat corporation advertising our train to arrive in New York at three-thirteen, instead of which we landed at four o'clock. If a similarbreach of contract had happened in England, a dozen letters would haveappeared in the "Times, " and the grievance been well aired. 

Another infliction to which all who travel in America are subjected isthe brushing atrocity. Twenty minutes before a train arrives at itsdestination, the despot who has taken no notice of any one up to thismoment, except to snub them, becomes suspiciously attentive and insistson brushing everybody. The dirt one traveller has been accumulating issent in clouds into the faces of his neighbors. When he is polished offand has paid his "quarter" of tribute, the next man gets up, and the dirtis then brushed back on to number one, with number two's collectionadded. 

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 thechair on the right over to the sofa on the left. " I always think of thatremark when I see the process performed in a parlor car, for when it isover we are all exactly where we began. If a man should shampoo hishair, or have his boots cleaned in a salon, he would be ejected as aboor; yet the idea apparently never enters the heads of those who soiland choke their fellow-passengers that the brushing might be done in thevestibule. 

On the subject of fresh air and heat we are also in the hands ofofficials, dozens of passengers being made to suffer for the caprices ofone of their number, or the taste of some captious invalid. In otherlands the rights of minorities are often ignored. With us it is thecontrary. One sniffling school-girl who prefers a temperature of 80degrees can force a car full of people to swelter in an atmosphere thatis death to them, because she refuses either to put on her wraps or tohave a window opened. 

Street railways are torture-chambers where we slaves are made to sufferin another way. You must begin to reel and plunge towards the door atleast two blocks before your destination, so as to leap to the groundwhen 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 quietlyin his place until the vehicle had come to a full stop, would be regardedby 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 wasexploded long ago. We are made, dozens of times a day, to feel that thisis no longer the case. It is, on the contrary, brought vividly home tous that such conveyances are money making machines in the possession ofpowerful corporations (to whom we, in our debasement, have handed overthe freedom of our streets and rivers), and are run in the interest andat the discretion of their owners. 

It is not only before the great and the powerful that we bow insubmission. The shop-girl is another tyrant who has planted her footfirmly on the neck of the nation. She respects neither sex nor age. Ensconced behind the bulwark of her counter, she scorns to notice humbleaspirants until they have performed a preliminary penance; a time shefills up in cheerful conversation addressed to other young tyrants, onlydeciding to notice customers when she sees their last grain of patienceis exhausted. She is often of a merry mood, and if anything about yourappearance or manner strikes her critical sense as amusing, will laughgayly with her companions at your expense. 

A French gentleman who speaks our language correctly but with someaccent, told me that he found it impossible to get served in our stores, the shop-girls bursting with laughter before he could make his wantsknown. 

Not long ago I was at the Compagnie Lyonnaise in Paris with a stoutAmerican lady, who insisted on tipping her chair forward on its frontlegs as she selected some laces. Suddenly the chair flew from under her, and she sat violently on the polished floor in an attitude so supremelycomic that the rest of her party were inwardly convulsed. Not a musclemoved in the faces of the well-trained clerks. The proprietor assistedher to rise as gravely as if he were bowing us to our carriage. 

In restaurants American citizens are treated even worse than in theshops. You will see cowed customers who are anxious to get away to theirbusiness or pleasure sitting mutely patient, until a waiter happens toremember their orders. I do not know a single establishment in this citywhere the waiters take any notice of their customers' arrival, or wherethe proprietor comes, toward the end of the meal, to inquire if thedishes have been cooked to their taste. The interest so general on theContinent or in England is replaced here by the same air of beingdisturbed from more important occupations, that characterizes the shop-girl and elevator boy. 

Numbers of our people live apparently in awe of their servants and theopinion of the tradespeople. One middle-aged lady whom I occasionallytake to the theatre, insists when we arrive at her door on myaccompanying her to the elevator, in order that the youth who presidestherein may see that she has an escort, the opinion of this subordinateapparently being of supreme importance to her. One of our "gildedyouths" recently told me of a thrilling adventure in which he hadfigured. At the moment he was passing under an awning on his way to areception, a gust of wind sent his hat gambolling down the block. "Thinkwhat a situation, " he exclaimed. "There stood a group of my friends'footmen watching me. But I was equal to the situation and entered thehouse as if nothing had happened!" Sir Walter Raleigh sacrificed a cloakto please a queen. This youth abandoned a new hat, fearing the laughterof a half-dozen servants. 

One of the reasons why we have become so weak in the presence of our paidmasters is that nowhere is the individual allowed to protest. The othernight a friend who was with me at a theatre considered the actinginferior, and expressed his opinion by hissing. He was promptly ejectedby a policeman. The man next me was, on the contrary, so pleased withthe 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. Onreferring the matter to the box-office, the caliph in charge informed methat the slaves he allowed to enter his establishment (like those who inother days formed the court of Louis XIV. ) were permitted to praise, butwere suppressed if they murmured dissent. In his _Memoires_, Dumas, _pere_, tells of a "first night" when three thousand people applauded aplay 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 toimprove it. "

How can we hope for any improvement in the standard of ourentertainments, the manners of our servants or the ways of corporationswhen no one complains? We are too much in a hurry to follow up agrievance and have it righted. "It doesn't pay, " "I haven't got thetime, " are phrases with which all such subjects are dismissed. We willsit in over-heated cars, eat vilely cooked food, put up with insolencefrom subordinates, because it is too much trouble to assert our rights. Is the spirit that prompted the first shots on Lexington Common becomingextinct? Have the floods of emigration so diluted our Anglo-Saxon bloodthat we no longer care to fight for liberty? Will no patriot arise andlead 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 customsin the box-office of an up-town theatre. For years I have tried topropitiate that satrap with modest politeness and feeble little jokes. Hehas never been softened by either, but continues to "chuck" the worstplaces out to me (no matter how early I arrive, the best have always beengiven to the speculators), and to frown down my attempts atself-assertion. 

When I have seen this enemy at my feet, I shall start down town (stoppingon the way to brain the teller at my bank, who is perennially paring hisnails, and refuses to see me until that operation is performed), to theoffice of a night-boat line, where the clerk has so often forced me, withhundreds of other weary victims, to stand in line like convicts, while hechats with a "lady friend, " his back turned to us and his leg comfortablythrown over the arm of his chair. Then I will take my blood-stainedway--but, no! It is better not to put my victims on their guard, but toabide 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 leastinclined toward self-inspection, an hour of thoughtfulness, a desire toglance back across the past, and set one's mental house in order, beforestarting out on another stage of the journey for that none too distantbourne toward which we all are moving. 

Our minds are like solitary dwellers in a vast residence, whom habit hasaccustomed 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 installedthese meagre belongings convenient to our hand, and contrived an entrancegiving facile access to our living-rooms, avoiding the effort of a longdetour through the echoing corridors and disused salons behind. Noacquaintances, and but few friends, penetrate into the private chambersof our thoughts. We set aside a common room for the reception ofvisitors, making it as cheerful as circumstances will allow and take carethat the conversation therein rarely turns on any subject more personalthan the view from the windows or the prophecies of the barometer. 

In the old-fashioned brick palace at Kensington, a little suite of roomsis carefully guarded from the public gaze, swept, garnished and tended asthough the occupants of long ago were hourly expected to return. Theearly years of England's aged sovereign were passed in these simpleapartments and by her orders they have been kept unchanged, the furnitureand decorations remaining to-day as when she inhabited them. In onecorner, is assembled a group of dolls, dressed in the quaint finery of1825. A set of miniature cooking utensils stands near by. A child'sscrap-books and color-boxes lie on the tables. In one sunny chamberstands the little white-draped bed where the heiress to the greatestcrown on earth dreamed her childish dreams, and from which she washastily aroused one June morning to be saluted as Queen. So homelike andlivable an air pervades the place, that one almost expects to see thelonely little girl of seventy years ago playing about the unpretendingchambers. 

Affection for the past and a reverence for the memory of the dead havecaused the royal wife and mother to preserve with the same care souvenirsof her passage in other royal residences. The apartments that shelteredthe first happy months of her wedded life, the rooms where she knew thejoys and anxieties of maternity, have become for her consecratedsanctuaries, where the widowed, broken old lady comes on certainanniversaries to evoke the unforgotten past, to meditate and to pray. 

Who, as the year is drawing to its close, does not open in memory somesuch sacred portal, and sit down in the familiar rooms to live over againthe old hopes and fears, thrilling anew with the joys and temptations ofother days? Yet, each year these pilgrimages into the past must becomemore and more lonely journeys; the friends whom we can take by the handand lead back to our old homes become fewer with each decade. It wouldbe a useless sacrilege to force some listless acquaintance to accompanyus. He would not hear the voices that call to us, or see the loved facesthat people the silent passages, and would wonder what attraction wecould find in the stuffy, old-fashioned quarters. 

Many people have such a dislike for any mental privacy that they passtheir lives in public, or surrounded only by sporting trophies and games. Some enjoy living in their pantries, composing for themselves succulentdishes, and interested in the doings of the servants, their companions. Others have turned their salons into nurseries, or feel a predilectionfor the stable and the dog-kennels. Such people soon weary of theirsurroundings, and move constantly, destroying, when they leave oldquarters, 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 thecommodity or appropriateness of their lodgements and look with pity andcontempt on friends who remain faithful to old habitations. The drawbackto a migratory existence, however, is the fact that, as a French sayinghas put it, _Ceux qui se refusent les pensees serieuses tombent dans lesidees noires_. These people are surprised to find as the years go bythat the futile amusements to which they have devoted themselves do notfill to their satisfaction all the hours of a lifetime. Having providedno books nor learned to practise any art, the time hangs heavily on theirhands. They dare not look forward into the future, so blank andcheerless 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 arefuge from their own thoughts. 

Happy those who care to revisit old abodes, childhood's remote wing, andthe 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 wastedopportunities? The new year will bring to them as near an approach toperfect happiness as can be attained in life's journey. The fortunatemortals are rare who can, without a heartache or regret, pass throughtheir disused and abandoned dwellings; who dare to open every door andenter all the silent rooms; who do not hurry shudderingly by some obscurecorners, and return with a sigh of relief to the cheerful sunlight andmurmurs of the present. 

Sleepless midnight hours come inevitably to each of us, when the creakinggates of subterranean passages far down in our consciousness open ofthemselves, and ghostly inhabitants steal out of awful vaults and forceus to look again into their faces and touch their unhealed wounds. 

An old lady whose cheerfulness under a hundred griefs and tribulationswas a marvel and an example, once told a man who had come to her forcounsel in a moment of bitter trouble, that she had derived comfort whendifficulties loomed big around her by writing down all her cares andworries, making a list of the subjects that harassed her, and had alwaysfound that, when reduced to material written words, the dimensions of hertroubles were astonishingly diminished. She recommended her procedure tothe troubled youth, and prophesied that his anxieties would dwindle awayin the clear atmosphere of pen and paper. 

Introspection, the deliberate unlatching of closed wickets, has the sameeffect of stealing away the bitterness from thoughts that, if left in thegloom of semi-oblivion, will grow until they overshadow a whole life. Itis better to follow the example of England's pure Queen, visiting oncertain anniversaries our secret places and holding communion with thepast, 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 fromthe silent chambers purified and chastened, more lenient to the faultsand shortcomings of others, and better fitted to take up cheerfully theburdens of a new year. 

Footnotes:

{276} December thirty-first, 1888.