Transcribed from the 1899 Charles Scribner's Sons edition by David Price,
email ccx074@pglaf.org
Worldly
Ways
&
Byways
BY
Eliot Gregory
("_An Idler_")
NEW YORK
_Charles Scribner's Sons_
MDCCCXCIX
_Copyright_, 1898, _by_
_Charles Scribner's Sons_
To
_E. L. Godkin, Esqre_.
SIR:
I wish your name to appear on the first page of a volume, the composition
of which was suggested by you.
Gratitude is said to be "the hope of favors to come;" these lines are
written to prove that it may be the appreciation of kindnesses received.
_Heartily yours_
_Eliot Gregory_
A Table of Contents
_To the R E A D E R_
1. Charm
2. The Moth and the Star
3. Contrasted Travelling
4. The Outer and the Inner Woman
5. On Some Gilded Misalliances
6. The Complacency of Mediocrity
7. The Discontent of Talent
8. Slouch
9. Social Suggestion
10. Bohemia
11. Social Exiles
12. "Seven Ages" of Furniture
13. Our Elite and Public Life
14. The Small Summer Hotel
15. A False Start
16. A Holy Land
17. Royalty at Play
18. A Rock Ahead
19. The Grand Prix
20. "The Treadmill"
21. "Like Master Like Man"
22. An English Invasion of the Riviera
23. A Common Weakness
24. Changing Paris
25. Contentment
26. The Climber
27. The Last of the Dandies
28. A Nation on the Wing
29. Husks
30. The Faubourg St. Germain
31. Men's Manners
32. An Ideal Hostess
33. The Introducer
34. A Question and an Answer
35. Living on Your Friends
36. American Society in Italy
37. The Newport of the Past
38. A Conquest of Europe
39. A Race of Slaves
40. Introspection
To the Reader
There existed formerly, in diplomatic circles, a curious custom, since
fallen into disuse, entitled the Pele Mele, contrived doubtless by some
distracted Master of Ceremonies to quell the endless jealousies and
quarrels for precedence between courtiers and diplomatists of contending
pretensions. Under this rule no rank was recognized, each person being
allowed at banquet, fete, or other public ceremony only such place as he
had been ingenious or fortunate enough to obtain.
Any one wishing to form an idea of the confusion that ensued, of the
intrigues and expedients resorted to, not only in procuring prominent
places, but also in ensuring the integrity of the Pele Mele, should
glance over the amusing memoirs of M. de Segur.
The aspiring nobles and ambassadors, harassed by this constant
preoccupation, had little time or inclination left for any serious
pursuit, since, to take a moment's repose or an hour's breathing space
was to risk falling behind in the endless and aimless race. Strange as
it may appear, the knowledge that they owed place and preferment more to
chance or intrigue than to any personal merit or inherited right, instead
of lessening the value of the prizes for which all were striving, seemed
only to enhance them in the eyes of the competitors.
Success was the unique standard by which they gauged their fellows. Those
who succeeded revelled in the adulation of their friends, but when any
one failed, the fickle crowd passed him by to bow at more fortunate feet.
No better picture could be found of the "world" of to-day, a perpetual
Pele Mele, where such advantages only are conceded as we have been
sufficiently enterprising to obtain, and are strong or clever enough to
keep--a constant competition, a daily steeplechase, favorable to daring
spirits and personal initiative but with the defect of keeping frail
humanity ever on the qui vive.
Philosophers tell us, that we should seek happiness only in the calm of
our own minds, not allowing external conditions or the opinions of others
to influence our ways. This lofty detachment from environment is
achieved by very few. Indeed, the philosophers themselves (who may be
said to have invented the art of "posing") were generally as vain as
peacocks, profoundly pre-occupied with the verdict of their
contemporaries and their position as regards posterity.
Man is born gregarious and remains all his life a herding animal. As one
keen observer has written, "So great is man's horror of being alone that
he will seek the society of those he neither likes nor respects sooner
than be left to his own." The laws and conventions that govern men's
intercourse have, therefore, formed a tempting subject for the writers of
all ages. Some have labored hoping to reform their generation, others
have written to offer solutions for life's many problems.
Beaumarchais, whose penetrating wit left few subjects untouched, makes
his Figaro put the subject aside with "Je me presse de rire de tout, de
peur d'etre oblige d'en pleurer."
The author of this little volume pretends to settle no disputes, aims at
inaugurating no reforms. He has lightly touched on passing topics and
jotted down, "to point a moral or adorn a tale," some of the more obvious
foibles and inconsistencies of our American ways. If a stray bit of
philosophy has here and there slipped in between the lines, it is mostly
of the laughing "school," and used more in banter than in blame.
This much abused "world" is a fairly agreeable place if you do not take
it seriously. Meet it with a friendly face and it will smile gayly back
at you, but do not ask of it what it cannot give, or attribute to its
verdicts more importance than they deserve.
ELIOT GREGORY
_Newport_, _November first_, 1897
No. 1--Charm
Women endowed by nature with the indescribable quality we call "charm"
(for want of a better word), are the supreme development of a perfected
race, the last word, as it were, of civilization; the flower of their
kind, crowning centuries of growing refinement and cultivation. Other
women may unite a thousand brilliant qualities, and attractive
attributes, may be beautiful as Astarte or witty as Madame de Montespan,
those endowed with the power of charm, have in all ages and under every
sky, held undisputed rule over the hearts of their generation.
When we look at the portraits of the enchantresses whom history tells us
have ruled the world by their charm, and swayed the destinies of empires
at their fancy, we are astonished to find that they have rarely been
beautiful. From Cleopatra or Mary of Scotland down to Lola Montez, the
tell-tale coin or canvas reveals the same marvellous fact. We wonder how
these women attained such influence over the men of their day, their
husbands or lovers. We would do better to look around us, or inward, and
observe what is passing in our own hearts.
Pause, reader mine, a moment and reflect. Who has held the first place
in your thoughts, filled your soul, and influenced your life? Was she
the most beautiful of your acquaintances, the radiant vision that dazzled
your boyish eyes? Has she not rather been some gentle, quiet woman whom
you hardly noticed the first time your paths crossed, but who gradually
grew to be a part of your life--to whom you instinctively turned for
consolation in moments of discouragement, for counsel in your
difficulties, and whose welcome was the bright moment in your day, looked
forward to through long hours of toil and worry?
In the hurly-burly of life we lose sight of so many things our fathers
and mothers clung to, and have drifted so far away from their gentle
customs and simple, home-loving habits, that one wonders what impression
our society would make on a woman of a century ago, could she by some
spell be dropped into the swing of modern days. The good soul would be
apt to find it rather a far cry from the quiet pleasures of her youth, to
"a ladies' amateur bicycle race" that formed the attraction recently at a
summer resort.
That we should have come to think it natural and proper for a young wife
and mother to pass her mornings at golf, lunching at the club-house to
"save time," returning home only for a hurried change of toilet to start
again on a bicycle or for a round of calls, an occupation that will leave
her just the half-hour necessary to slip into a dinner gown, and then for
her to pass the evening in dancing or at the card-table, shows, when one
takes the time to think of it, how unconsciously we have changed, and
(with all apologies to the gay hostesses and graceful athletes of to-day)
not for the better.
It is just in the subtle quality of charm that the women of the last ten
years have fallen away from their elder sisters. They have been carried
along by a love of sport, and by the set of fashion's tide, not stopping
to ask themselves whither they are floating. They do not realize all the
importance of their acts nor the true meaning of their metamorphosis.
The dear creatures should be content, for they have at last escaped from
the bondage of ages, have broken their chains, and vaulted over their
prison walls. "Lords and masters" have gradually become very humble and
obedient servants, and the "love, honour, and obey" of the marriage
service might now more logically be spoken by the man; on the lips of the
women of to-day it is but a graceful "_facon de parler_," and holds only
those who choose to be bound.
It is not my intention to rail against the short-comings of the day. That
ungrateful task I leave to sterner moralists, and hopeful souls who
naively imagine they can stem the current of an epoch with the barrier of
their eloquence, or sweep back an ocean of innovations by their logic. I
should like, however, to ask my sisters one question: Are they quite sure
that women gain by these changes? Do they imagine, these "sporty" young
females in short-cut skirts and mannish shirts and ties, that it is
seductive to a lover, or a husband to see his idol in a violent
perspiration, her draggled hair blowing across a sunburned face, panting
up a long hill in front of him on a bicycle, frantic at having lost her
race? Shade of gentle William! who said
_A woman moved_, _is like a fountain troubled_,--
_Muddy_, _ill-seeming_, _thick_, _bereft of beauty_.
_And while it is so_, _none so dry or thirsty_
_Will deign to sip or touch one drop of it_.
Is the modern girl under the impression that men will be contented with
poor imitations of themselves, to share their homes and be the mothers of
their children? She is throwing away the substance for the shadow!
The moment women step out from the sanctuary of their homes, the glamour
that girlhood or maternity has thrown around them cast aside, that moment
will they cease to rule mankind. Women may agitate until they have
obtained political recognition, but will awake from their foolish dream
of power, realizing too late what they have sacrificed to obtain it, that
the price has been very heavy, and the fruit of their struggles bitter on
their lips.
There are few men, I imagine, of my generation to whom the words "home"
and "mother" have not a penetrating charm, who do not look back with
softened heart and tender thoughts to fireside scenes of evening readings
and twilight talks at a mother's knee, realizing that the best in their
natures owes its growth to these influences.
I sometimes look about me and wonder what the word "mother" will mean
later, to modern little boys. It will evoke, I fear, a confused
remembrance of some centaur-like being, half woman, half wheel, or as it
did to neglected little Rawdon Crawley, the vision of a radiant creature
in gauze and jewels, driving away to endless _fetes_--_fetes_ followed by
long mornings, when he was told not to make any noise, or play too
loudly, "as poor mamma is resting." What other memories can the
"successful" woman of to-day hope to leave in the minds of her children?
If the child remembers his mother in this way, will not the man who has
known and perhaps loved her, feel the same sensation of empty futility
when her name is mentioned?
The woman who proposes a game of cards to a youth who comes to pass an
hour in her society, can hardly expect him to carry away a particularly
tender memory of her as he leaves the house. The girl who has rowed,
ridden, or raced at a man's side for days, with the object of getting the
better of him at some sport or pastime, cannot reasonably hope to be
connected in his thoughts with ideas more tender or more elevated than
"odds" or "handicaps," with an undercurrent of pique if his unsexed
companion has "downed" him successfully.
What man, unless he be singularly dissolute or unfortunate, but turns his
steps, when he can, towards some dainty parlor where he is sure of
finding a smiling, soft-voiced woman, whose welcome he knows will soothe
his irritated nerves and restore the even balance of his temper, whose
charm will work its subtle way into his troubled spirit? The wife he
loves, or the friend he admires and respects, will do more for him in one
such quiet hour when two minds commune, coming closer to the real man,
and moving him to braver efforts, and nobler aims, than all the beauties
and "sporty" acquaintances of a lifetime. No matter what a man's
education or taste is, none are insensible to such an atmosphere or to
the grace and witchery a woman can lend to the simplest surroundings. She
need not be beautiful or brilliant to hold him in lifelong allegiance, if
she but possess this magnetism.
Madame Recamier was a beautiful, but not a brilliant woman, yet she held
men her slaves for years. To know her was to fall under her charm, and
to feel it once was to remain her adorer for life. She will go down to
history as the type of a fascinating woman. Being asked once by an
acquaintance what spell she worked on mankind that enabled her to hold
them for ever at her feet, she laughingly answered:
"I have always found two words sufficient. When a visitor comes into my
salon, I say, '_Enfin_!' and when he gets up to go away, I say,
'_Deja_!'"
"What is this wonderful 'charm' he is writing about?" I hear some
sprightly maiden inquire as she reads these lines. My dear young lady,
if you ask the question, you have judged yourself and been found wanting.
But to satisfy you as far as I can, I will try and define it--not by
telling you what it is; that is beyond my power--but by negatives, the
only way in which subtle subjects can be approached.
A woman of charm is never flustered and never _distraite_. She talks
little, and rarely of herself, remembering that bores are persons who
insist on talking about themselves. She does not break the thread of a
conversation by irrelevant questions or confabulate in an undertone with
the servants. No one of her guests receives more of her attention than
another and none are neglected. She offers to each one who speaks the
homage of her entire attention. She never makes an effort to be
brilliant or entertain with her wit. She is far too clever for that.
Neither does she volunteer information nor converse about her troubles or
her ailments, nor wander off into details about people you do not know.
She is all things--to each man she likes, in the best sense of that
phrase, appreciating his qualities, stimulating him to better things.
--_for his gayer hours_
_She has a voice of gladness and a smile and eloquence of beauty_;
_and she glides_
_Into his darker musings with a mild and healing sympathy that steals
away_
_Their sharpness ere he is aware_.
No. 2--The Moth and the Star
The truth of the saying that "it is always the unexpected that happens,"
receives in this country a confirmation from an unlooked-for quarter, as
does the fact of human nature being always, discouragingly, the same in
spite of varied surroundings. This sounds like a paradox, but is an
exceedingly simple statement easily proved.
That the great mass of Americans, drawn as they are from such varied
sources, should take any interest in the comings and goings or social
doings of a small set of wealthy and fashionable people, is certainly an
unexpected development. That to read of the amusements and home life of
a clique of people with whom they have little in common, whose whole
education and point of view are different from their own, and whom they
have rarely seen and never expect to meet, should afford the average
citizen any amusement seems little short of impossible.
One accepts as a natural sequence that abroad (where an hereditary
nobility have ruled for centuries, and accustomed the people to look up
to them as the visible embodiment of all that is splendid and
unattainable in life) such interest should exist. That the home-coming
of an English or French nobleman to his estates should excite the
enthusiasm of hundreds more or less dependent upon him for their
amusement or more material advantages; that his marriage to an
heiress--meaning to them the re-opening of a long-closed _chateau_ and
the beginning of a period of prosperity for the district--should excite
his neighbors is not to be wondered at.
It is well known that whole regions have been made prosperous by the
residence of a court, witness the wealth and trade brought into Scotland
by the Queen's preference for "the Land of Cakes," and the discontent and
poverty in Ireland from absenteeism and persistent avoidance of that
country by the court. But in this land, where every reason for
interesting one class in another seems lacking, that thousands of well-to-
do people (half the time not born in this hemisphere), should delightedly
devour columns of incorrect information about New York dances and Lenox
house-parties, winter cruises, or Newport coaching parades, strikes the
observer as the "unexpected" in its purest form.
That this interest exists is absolutely certain. During a trip in the
West, some seasons ago, I was dumbfounded to find that the members of a
certain New York set were familiarly spoken of by their first names, and
was assailed with all sorts of eager questions when it was discovered
that I knew them. A certain young lady, at that time a belle in New
York, was currently called _Sally_, and a well-known sportsman _Fred_, by
thousands of people who had never seen either of them. It seems
impossible, does it not? Let us look a little closer into the reason of
this interest, and we shall find how simple is the apparent paradox.
Perhaps in no country, in all the world, do the immense middle classes
lead such uninteresting lives, and have such limited resources at their
disposal for amusement or the passing of leisure hours.
Abroad the military bands play constantly in the public parks; the
museums and palaces are always open wherein to pass rainy Sunday
afternoons; every village has its religious _fetes_ and local fair,
attended with dancing and games. All these mental relaxations are
lacking in our newer civilization; life is stripped of everything that is
not distinctly practical; the dull round of weekly toil is only broken by
the duller idleness of an American Sunday. Naturally, these people long
for something outside of themselves and their narrow sphere.
Suddenly there arises a class whose wealth permits them to break through
the iron circle of work and boredom, who do picturesque and delightful
things, which appeal directly to the imagination; they build a summer
residence complete, in six weeks, with furniture and bric-a-brac, on the
top of a roadless mountain; they sail in fairylike yachts to summer seas,
and marry their daughters to the heirs of ducal houses; they float up the
Nile in dahabeeyah, or pass the "month of flowers" in far Japan.
It is but human nature to delight in reading of these things. Here the
great mass of the people find (and eagerly seize on), the element of
romance lacking in their lives, infinitely more enthralling than the
doings of any novel's heroine. It is real! It is taking place!
and--still deeper reason--in every ambitious American heart lingers the
secret hope that with luck and good management they too may do those very
things, or at least that their children will enjoy the fortunes they have
gained, in just those ways. The gloom of the monotonous present is
brightened, the patient toiler returns to his desk with something
definite before him--an objective point--towards which he can struggle;
he knows that this is no impossible dream. Dozens have succeeded and
prove to him what energy and enterprise can accomplish.
Do not laugh at this suggestion; it is far truer than you imagine. Many
a weary woman has turned from such reading to her narrow duties, feeling
that life is not all work, and with renewed hope in the possibilities of
the future.
Doubtless a certain amount of purely idle curiosity is mingled with the
other feelings. I remember quite well showing our city sights to a bored
party of Western friends, and failing entirely to amuse them, when,
happening to mention as we drove up town, "there goes Mr. Blank," (naming
a prominent leader of cotillions), my guests nearly fell over each other
and out of the carriage in their eagerness to see the gentleman of whom
they had read so much, and who was, in those days, a power in his way,
and several times after they expressed the greatest satisfaction at
having seen him.
I have found, with rare exceptions, and the experience has been rather
widely gathered all over the country, that this interest--or call it what
you will--has been entirely without spite or bitterness, rather the
delight of a child in a fairy story. For people are rarely envious of
things far removed from their grasp. You will find that a woman who is
bitter because her neighbor has a girl "help" or a more comfortable
cottage, rarely feels envy towards the owners of opera-boxes or yachts.
Such heart-burnings (let us hope they are few) are among a class born in
the shadow of great wealth, and bred up with tastes that they can neither
relinquish nor satisfy. The large majority of people show only a good-
natured inclination to chaff, none of the "class feeling" which certain
papers and certain politicians try to excite. Outside of the large
cities with their foreign-bred, semi-anarchistic populations, the tone is
perfectly friendly; for the simple reason that it never entered into the
head of any American to imagine that there _was_ any class difference. To
him his rich neighbors are simply his lucky neighbors, almost his
relations, who, starting from a common stock, have been able to "get
there" sooner than he has done. So he wishes them luck on the voyage in
which he expects to join them as soon as he has had time to make a
fortune.
So long as the world exists, or at least until we have reformed it and
adopted Mr. Bellamy's delightful scheme of existence as described in
"Looking Backward," great fortunes will be made, and painful contrasts be
seen, especially in cities, and it would seem to be the duty of the press
to soften--certainly not to sharpen--the edge of discontent. As long as
human nature is human nature, and the poor care to read of the doings of
the more fortunate, by all means give them the reading they enjoy and
demand, but let it be written in a kindly spirit so that it may be a
cultivation as well as a recreation. Treat this perfectly natural and
honest taste honestly and naturally, for, after all, it is
_The desire of the moth for the star_,
_Of the night for the morrow_.
_The devotion to something afar_
_From the sphere of our sorrow_.
No. 3--Contrasted Travelling
When our parents went to Europe fifty years ago, it was the event of a
lifetime--a tour lovingly mapped out in advance with advice from
travelled friends. Passports were procured, books read, wills made, and
finally, prayers were offered up in church and solemn leave-taking
performed. Once on the other side, descriptive letters were
conscientiously written, and eagerly read by friends at home,--in spite
of these epistles being on the thinnest of paper and with crossing
carried to a fine art, for postage was high in the forties. Above all, a
journal was kept.
Such a journal lies before me as I write. Four little volumes in worn
morocco covers and faded "Italian" writing, more precious than all my
other books combined, their sight recalls that lost time--my youth--when,
as a reward, they were unlocked that I might look at the drawings, and
the sweetest voice in the world would read to me from them! Happy,
vanished days, that are so far away they seem to have been in another
existence!
The first volume opens with the voyage across the Atlantic, made in an
American clipper (a model unsurpassed the world over), which was
accomplished in thirteen days, a feat rarely equalled now, by sail.
Genial Captain Nye was in command. The same who later, when a steam
propelled vessel was offered him, refused, as unworthy of a seaman, "to
boil a kettle across the ocean."
Life friendships were made in those little cabins, under the swinging
lamp the travellers re-read last volumes so as to be prepared to
appreciate everything on landing. Ireland, England and Scotland were
visited with an enthusiasm born of Scott, the tedium of long coaching
journeys being beguiled by the first "numbers" of "Pickwick," over which
the men of the party roared, but which the ladies did not care for,
thinking it vulgar, and not to be compared to "Waverley," "Thaddeus of
Warsaw," or "The Mysteries of Udolpho."
A circular letter to our diplomatic agents abroad was presented in each
city, a rite invariably followed by an invitation to dine, for which
occasions a black satin frock with a low body and a few simple ornaments,
including (supreme elegance) a diamond cross, were carried in the trunks.
In London a travelling carriage was bought and stocked, the indispensable
courier engaged, half guide, half servant, who was expected to explore a
city, or wait at table, as occasion required. Four days were passed
between Havre and Paris, and the slow progress across Europe was
accomplished, Murray in one hand and Byron in the other.
One page used particularly to attract my boyish attention. It was headed
by a naive little drawing of the carriage at an Italian inn door, and
described how, after the dangers and discomforts of an Alpine pass, they
descended by sunny slopes into Lombardy. Oh! the rapture that breathes
from those simple pages! The vintage scenes, the mid-day halt for
luncheon eaten in the open air, the afternoon start, the front seat of
the carriage heaped with purple grapes, used to fire my youthful
imagination and now recalls Madame de Stael's line on perfect happiness:
"To be young! to be in love! to be in Italy!"
Do people enjoy Europe as much now? I doubt it! It has become too much
a matter of course, a necessary part of the routine of life. Much of the
bloom is brushed from foreign scenes by descriptive books and
photographs, that St. Mark's or Mt. Blanc has become as familiar to a
child's eye as the house he lives in, and in consequence the reality now
instead of being a revelation is often a disappointment.
In my youth, it was still an event to cross. I remember my first voyage
on the old side-wheeled _Scotia_, and Captain Judkins in a wheeled chair,
and a perpetual bad temper, being pushed about the deck; and our delight,
when the inevitable female asking him (three days out) how far we were
from land, got the answer "about a mile!"
"Indeed! How interesting! In which direction?"
"In that direction, madam," shouted the captain, pointing downward as he
turned his back to her.
If I remember, we were then thirteen days getting to Liverpool, and made
the acquaintance on board of the people with whom we travelled during
most of that winter. Imagine anyone now making an acquaintance on board
a steamer! In those simple days people depended on the friendships made
at summer hotels or boarding-houses for their visiting list. At present,
when a girl comes out, her mother presents her to everybody she will be
likely to know if she were to live a century. In the seventies, ladies
cheerfully shared their state-rooms with women they did not know, and
often became friends in consequence; but now, unless a certain deck-suite
can be secured, with bath and sitting-room, on one or two particular
"steamers," the great lady is in despair. Yet our mothers were quite as
refined as the present generation, only they took life simply, as they
found it.
Children are now taken abroad so young, that before they have reached an
age to appreciate what they see, Europe has become to them a twice-told
tale. So true is this, that a receipt for making children good Americans
is to bring them up abroad. Once they get back here it is hard to entice
them away again.
With each improvement in the speed of our steamers, something of the
glamour of Europe vanishes. The crowds that yearly rush across see and
appreciate less in a lifetime than our parents did in their one tour
abroad. A good lady of my acquaintance was complaining recently how much
Paris bored her.
"What can you do to pass the time?" she asked. I innocently answered
that I knew nothing so entrancing as long mornings passed at the Louvre.
"Oh, yes, I do that too," she replied, "but I like the 'Bon Marche'
best!"
A trip abroad has become a purely social function to a large number of
wealthy Americans, including "presentation" in London and a winter in
Rome or Cairo. And just as a "smart" Englishman is sure to tell you that
he has never visited the "Tower," it has become good form to ignore the
sight-seeing side of Europe; hundreds of New Yorkers never seeing
anything of Paris beyond the Rue de la Paix and the Bois. They would as
soon think of going to Cluny or St. Denis as of visiting the museum in
our park!
Such people go to Fontainebleau because they are buying furniture, and
they wish to see the best models. They go to Versailles on the coach and
"do" the Palace during the half-hour before luncheon. Beyond that,
enthusiasm rarely carries them. As soon as they have settled themselves
at the Bristol or the Rhin begins the endless treadmill of leaving cards
on all the people just seen at home, and whom they will meet again in a
couple of months at Newport or Bar Harbor. This duty and the
all-entrancing occupation of getting clothes fills up every spare hour.
Indeed, clothes seem to pervade the air of Paris in May, the conversation
rarely deviating from them. If you meet a lady you know looking ill, and
ask the cause, it generally turns out to be "four hours a day standing to
be fitted." Incredible as it may seem, I have been told of one plain
maiden lady, who makes a trip across, spring and autumn, with the sole
object of getting her two yearly outfits.
Remembering the hundreds of cultivated people whose dream in life (often
unrealized from lack of means) has been to go abroad and visit the scenes
their reading has made familiar, and knowing what such a trip would mean
to them, and how it would be looked back upon during the rest of an
obscure life, I felt it almost a duty to "suppress" a wealthy female
(doubtless an American cousin of Lady Midas) when she informed me, the
other day, that decidedly she would not go abroad this spring.
"It is not necessary. Worth has my measures!"
No. 4--The Outer and the Inner Woman
It is a sad commentary on our boasted civilization that cases of
shoplifting occur more and more frequently each year, in which the
delinquents are women of education and refinement, or at least belong to
families and occupy positions in which one would expect to find those
qualities! The reason, however, is not difficult to discover.
In the wake of our hasty and immature prosperity has come (as it does to
all suddenly enriched societies) a love of ostentation, a desire to
dazzle the crowd by displays of luxury and rich trappings indicative of
crude and vulgar standards. The newly acquired money, instead of being
expended for solid comforts or articles which would afford lasting
satisfaction, is lavished on what can be worn in public, or the outer
shell of display, while the home table and fireside belongings are
neglected. A glance around our theatres, or at the men and women in our
crowded thoroughfares, is sufficient to reveal to even a casual observer
that the mania for fine clothes and what is costly, _per se_, has become
the besetting sin of our day and our land.
The tone of most of the papers and of our theatrical advertisements
reflects this feeling. The amount of money expended for a work of art or
a new building is mentioned before any comment as to its beauty or
fitness. A play is spoken of as "Manager So and So's thirty-thousand-
dollar production!" The fact that a favorite actress will appear in four
different dresses during the three acts of a comedy, each toilet being a
special creation designed for her by a leading Parisian house, is
considered of supreme importance and is dwelt upon in the programme as a
special attraction.
It would be astonishing if the taste of our women were different,
considering the way clothes are eternally being dangled before their
eyes. Leading papers publish illustrated supplements devoted exclusively
to the subject of attire, thus carrying temptation into every humble
home, and suggesting unattainable luxuries. Windows in many of the
larger shops contain life-sized manikins loaded with the latest costly
and ephemeral caprices of fashion arranged to catch the eye of the poorer
class of women, who stand in hundreds gazing at the display like larks
attracted by a mirror! Watch those women as they turn away, and listen
to their sighs of discontent and envy. Do they not tell volumes about
petty hopes and ambitions?
I do not refer to the wealthy women whose toilets are in keeping with
their incomes and the general footing of their households; that they
should spend more or less in fitting themselves out daintily is of little
importance. The point where this subject becomes painful is in families
of small means where young girls imagine that to be elaborately dressed
is the first essential of existence, and, in consequence, bend their
labors and their intelligence towards this end. Last spring I asked an
old friend where she and her daughters intended passing their summer. Her
answer struck me as being characteristic enough to quote: "We should much
prefer," she said, "returning to Bar Harbor, for we all enjoy that place
and have many friends there. But the truth is, my daughters have bought
themselves very little in the way of toilet this year, as our finances
are not in a flourishing condition. So my poor girls will be obliged to
make their last year's dresses do for another season. Under these
circumstances, it is out of the question for us to return a second summer
to the same place."
I do not know how this anecdote strikes my readers. It made me
thoughtful and sad to think that, in a family of intelligent and
practical women, such a reason should be considered sufficient to
outweigh enjoyment, social relations, even health, and allowed to change
the plans of an entire family.
As American women are so fond of copying English ways they should be
willing to take a few lessons on the subject of raiment from across the
water. As this is not intended to be a dissertation on "How to Dress
Well on Nothing a Year," and as I feel the greatest diffidence in
approaching a subject of which I know absolutely nothing, it will be
better to sheer off from these reefs and quicksands. Every one who reads
these lines will know perfectly well what is meant, when reference is
made to the good sense and practical utility of English women's dress.
What disgusts and angers me (when my way takes me into our surface or
elevated cars or into ferry boats and local trains) is the utter
dissonance between the outfit of most of the women I meet and their
position and occupation. So universal is this, that it might almost be
laid down as an axiom, that the American woman, no matter in what walk of
life you observe her, or what the time or the place, is always
persistently and grotesquely overdressed. From the women who frequent
the hotels of our summer or winter resorts, down all the steps of the
social staircase to the char-woman, who consents (spasmodically) to
remove the dust and waste-papers from my office, there seems to be the
same complete disregard of fitness. The other evening, in leaving my
rooms, I brushed against a portly person in the half-light of the
corridor. There was a shimmer of (what appeared to my inexperienced eyes
as) costly stuffs, a huge hat crowned the shadow itself, "topped by
nodding plumes," which seemed to account for the depleted condition of my
feather duster.
I found on inquiring of the janitor, that the dressy person I had met,
was the char-woman in street attire, and that a closet was set aside in
the building, for the special purpose of her morning and evening
transformations, which she underwent in the belief that her social
position in Avenue A would suffer, should she appear in the streets
wearing anything less costly than seal-skin and velvet or such imitations
of those expensive materials as her stipend would permit.
I have as tenants of a small wooden house in Jersey City, a bank clerk,
his wife and their three daughters. He earns in the neighborhood of
fifteen hundred dollars a year. Their rent (with which, by the way, they
are always in arrears) is three hundred dollars. I am favored spring and
autumn by a visit from the ladies of that family, in the hope (generally
futile) of inducing me to do some ornamental papering or painting in
their residence, subjects on which they have by experience found my agent
to be unapproachable. When those four women descend upon me, I am fairly
dazzled by the splendor of their attire, and lost in wonder as to how the
price of all that finery can have been squeezed out of the twelve
remaining hundreds of their income. When I meet the father he is shabby
to the outer limits of the genteel. His hat has, I am sure, supported
the suns and snowstorms of a dozen seasons. There is a threadbare shine
on his apparel that suggests a heartache in each whitened seam, but the
ladies are mirrors of fashion, as well as moulds of form. What can
remain for any creature comforts after all those fine clothes have been
paid for? And how much is put away for the years when the long-suffering
money maker will be past work, or saved towards the time when sickness or
accident shall appear on the horizon? How those ladies had the "nerve"
to enter a ferry boat or crowd into a cable car, dressed as they were,
has always been a marvel to me. A landau and two liveried servants would
barely have been in keeping with their appearance.
Not long ago, a great English nobleman, who is also famous in the
yachting world, visited this country accompanied by his two daughters,
high-bred and genial ladies. No self-respecting American shop girl or
fashionable typewriter would have condescended to appear in the
inexpensive attire which those English women wore. Wherever one met
them, at dinner, _fete_, or ball, they were always the most simply
dressed women in the room. I wonder if it ever occurred to any of their
gorgeously attired hostesses, that it was because their transatlantic
guests were so sure of their position, that they contented themselves
with such simple toilets knowing that nothing they might wear could
either improve or alter their standing.
In former ages, sumptuary laws were enacted by parental governments, in
the hope of suppressing extravagance in dress, the state of affairs we
deplore now, not being a new development of human weakness, but as old as
wealth.
The desire to shine by the splendor of one's trappings is the first idea
of the parvenu, especially here in this country, where the ambitious are
denied the pleasure of acquiring a title, and where official rank carries
with it so little social weight. Few more striking ways present
themselves to the crude and half-educated for the expenditure of a new
fortune than the purchase of sumptuous apparel, the satisfaction being
immediate and material. The wearer of a complete and perfect toilet must
experience a delight of which the uninitiated know nothing, for such
cruel sacrifices are made and so many privations endured to procure this
satisfaction. When I see groups of women, clad in the latest designs of
purple and fine linen, stand shivering on street corners of a winter
night, until they can crowd into a car, I doubt if the joy they get from
their clothes, compensates them for the creature comforts they are forced
to forego, and I wonder if it never occurs to them to spend less on their
wardrobes and so feel they can afford to return from a theatre or concert
comfortably, in a cab, as a foreign woman, with their income would do.
There is a stoical determination about the American point of view that
compels a certain amount of respect. Our countrywomen will deny
themselves pleasures, will economize on their food and will remain in
town during the summer, but when walking abroad they must be clad in the
best, so that no one may know by their appearance if the income be
counted by hundreds or thousands.
While these standards prevail and the female mind is fixed on this
subject with such dire intent, it is not astonishing that a weaker sister
is occasionally tempted beyond her powers of resistance. Nor that each
day a new case of a well-dressed woman thieving in a shop reaches our
ears. The poor feeble-minded creature is not to blame. She is but the
reflexion of the minds around her and is probably like the lady Emerson
tells of, who confessed to him "that the sense of being perfectly well-
dressed had given her a feeling of inward tranquillity which religion was
powerless to bestow."
No. 5--On Some Gilded Misalliances
A dear old American lady, who lived the greater part of her life in Rome,
and received every body worth knowing in her spacious drawing-rooms, far
up in the dim vastnesses of a Roman palace, used to say that she had only
known one really happy marriage made by an American girl abroad.
In those days, being young and innocent, I considered that remark
cynical, and in my heart thought nothing could be more romantic and
charming than for a fair compatriot to assume an historic title and
retire to her husband's estates, and rule smilingly over him and a
devoted tenantry, as in the last act of a comic opera, when a
rose-colored light is burning and the orchestra plays the last brilliant
chords of a wedding march.
There seemed to my perverted sense a certain poetic justice about the
fact that money, gained honestly but prosaically, in groceries or gas,
should go to regild an ancient blazon or prop up the crumbling walls of
some stately palace abroad.
Many thoughtful years and many cruel realities have taught me that my
gracious hostess of the "seventies" was right, and that marriage under
these conditions is apt to be much more like the comic opera after the
curtain has been rung down, when the lights are out, the applauding
public gone home, and the weary actors brought slowly back to the present
and the positive, are wondering how they are to pay their rent or dodge
the warrant in ambush around the corner.
International marriages usually come about from a deficient knowledge of
the world. The father becomes rich, the family travel abroad, some
mutual friend (often from purely interested motives) produces a suitor
for the hand of the daughter, in the shape of a "prince" with a title
that makes the whole simple American family quiver with delight.
After a few visits the suitor declares himself; the girl is flattered,
the father loses his head, seeing visions of his loved daughter
hob-nobbing with royalty, and (intoxicating thought!) snubbing the
"swells" at home who had shown reluctance to recognize him and his
family.
It is next to impossible for him to get any reliable information about
his future son-in-law in a country where, as an American, he has few
social relations, belongs to no club, and whose idiom is a sealed book to
him. Every circumstance conspires to keep the flaws on the article for
sale out of sight and place the suitor in an advantageous light. Several
weeks' "courting" follows, paterfamilias agrees to part with a handsome
share of his earnings, and a marriage is "arranged."
In the case where the girl has retained some of her self-respect the
suitor is made to come to her country for the ceremony. And, that the
contrast between European ways and our simple habits may not be too
striking, an establishment is hastily got together, with hired liveries
and new-bought carriages, as in a recent case in this state. The
sensational papers write up this "international union," and publish
"faked" portraits of the bride and her noble spouse. The sovereign of
the groom's country (enchanted that some more American money is to be
imported into his land) sends an economical present and an autograph
letter. The act ends. Limelight and slow music!
In a few years rumors of dissent and trouble float vaguely back to the
girl's family. Finally, either a great scandal occurs, and there is one
dishonored home the more in the world, or an expatriated woman, thousands
of miles from the friends and relatives who might be of some comfort to
her, makes up her mind to accept "anything" for the sake of her children,
and attempts to build up some sort of an existence out of the remains of
her lost illusions, and the father wakes up from his dream to realize
that his wealth has only served to ruin what he loved best in all the
world.
Sometimes the conditions are delightfully comic, as in a well-known case,
where the daughter, who married into an indolent, happy-go-lucky Italian
family, had inherited her father's business push and energy along with
his fortune, and immediately set about "running" her husband's estate as
she had seen her father do his bank. She tried to revive a
half-forgotten industry in the district, scraped and whitewashed their
picturesque old villa, proposed her husband's entering business, and in
short dashed head down against all his inherited traditions and national
prejudices, until her new family loathed the sight of the brisk American
face, and the poor she had tried to help, sulked in their newly drained
houses and refused to be comforted. Her ways were not Italian ways, and
she seemed to the nun-like Italian ladies, almost unsexed, as she tramped
about the fields, talking artificial manure and subsoil drainage with the
men. Yet neither she nor her husband was to blame. The young Italian
had but followed the teachings of his family, which decreed that the only
honorable way for an aristocrat to acquire wealth was to marry it. The
American wife honestly tried to do her duty in this new position, naively
thinking she could engraft transatlantic "go" upon the indolent Italian
character. Her work was in vain; she made herself and her husband so
unpopular that they are now living in this country, regretting too late
the error of their ways.
Another case but little less laughable, is that of a Boston girl with a
neat little fortune of her own, who, when married to the young Viennese
of her choice, found that he expected her to live with his family on the
third floor of their "palace" (the two lower floors being rented to
foreigners), and as there was hardly enough money for a box at the opera,
she was not expected to go, whereas his position made it necessary for
him to have a stall and appear there nightly among the men of his rank,
the astonished and disillusioned Bostonian remaining at home _en tete-a-
tete_ with the women of his family, who seemed to think this the most
natural arrangement in the world.
It certainly is astonishing that we, the most patriotic of nations, with
such high opinion of ourselves and our institutions, should be so ready
to hand over our daughters and our ducats to the first foreigner who asks
for them, often requiring less information about him than we should
consider necessary before buying a horse or a dog.
Women of no other nation have this mania for espousing aliens. Nowhere
else would a girl with a large fortune dream of marrying out of her
country. Her highest ideal of a husband would be a man of her own kin.
It is the rarest thing in the world to find a well-born French, Spanish,
or Italian woman married to a foreigner and living away from her country.
How can a woman expect to be happy separated from all the ties and
traditions of her youth? If she is taken abroad young, she may still
hope to replace her friends as is often done. But the real reason of
unhappiness (greater and deeper than this) lies in the fundamental
difference of the whole social structure between our country and that of
her adoption, and the radically different way of looking at every side of
life.