[Illustration: M]Morning and evening, from every village within three or
four miles of the metropolis, may be remarked a tide of young men wending
diurnal way to and from their respective desks and counters in the city,
preceded by a ripple of errand-boys, and light porters, and followed by an
ebb of plethoric elderly gentlemen in drab gaiters. Now these individuals
compose--for the most part--that particular, yet indefinite class of
people, who call themselves "gentlemen," and are called by everybody else
"persons." They are a body--the advanced guard--of the "Tiptoes;" an army
which invaded us some thirty years ago, and which, since that time, has
been actively and perseveringly spoiling and desolating our modest, quiet,
comfortable English homes, turning our parlours into "boudoirs," ripping
our fragrant patches of roses into fantastic "parterres," covering our
centre tables with albums and wax flowers, and, in short (for these
details pain us), stripping our nooks and corners of the welcome warm air
of pleasant homeliness, which was wont to be a charm and a privilege, to
substitute for it a chilly gloss--an unwholesome straining after effect--a
something less definite in its operation than in its result, which is
called--gentility.
To have done with simile. Our matrons have discovered that luxury is
specifically cheaper than comfort (and they regard them as independent, if
not incompatible terms); and more than this, that comfort is, after all,
but an irrelevant and dispensable corollary to gentility, while luxury is
its main prop and stay. Furthermore, that improvidence is a virtue of such
lustre, that itself or its likeness is essential to the very existence of
respectability; and, by carrying out this proposition, that in order to
make the least amount of extravagance produce the utmost admiration and
envy, it is desirable to be improvident as publicly as possible; the means
for such expenditure being gleaned from retrenchments in the home
department. Thus, by a system of domestic alchemy, the education of the
children is resolved into a vehicle; a couple of maids are amalgamated
into a man in livery; while to a single drudge, superintended and aided by
the mistress and elder girls, is confided the economy of the pantry, from
whose meagre shelves are supplied supplementary blondes and kalydors.
Now a system of economy which can induce a mother to "bring up her
children at home," while she regards a phaeton as absolutely necessary to
convey her to church and to her tradespeople, and an annual visit to the
sea-side as perfectly indispensable to restore the faded complexions of
Frances and Jemima, ruined by late hours and hot cream, may be considered
open to censure by the philosopher who places women (and girls, _i.e._
unmarried women) in the rank of responsible or even rational creatures.
But in this disposition he would be clearly wrong. Before venturing to
define the precise capacity of either an individual or a class, their own
opinion on the subject should assuredly be consulted; and we are quite
sure that there is not one of the lady Tiptoes who would not recoil with
horror from the suspicion of advancing or even of entertaining an idea--it
having been ascertained that everything original (sin and all) is quite
inconformable with the feminine character--unless indeed it be a method of
finding the third side of a turned silk--or of defining that zero of
fortune, to stand below which constitutes a "detrimental."
The Misses Tiptoe are an indefinite number of young ladies, of whom it is
commonly remarked that some may have been pretty, and others may,
hereafter, be pretty. But they never _are_ so; and, consequently, they are
very fearful of being eclipsed by their dependents, and take care to
engage only ill-favoured governesses, and (but 'tis an old pun) very plain
cooks. The great business of their lives is fascination, and in its
pursuit they are unremitting. It is divided in distinct departments, among
the sisters; each of whom is characterised at home by some laudatory
epithet, strikingly illustrative of what they would like to be. There is
Miss Tiptoe, such an amiable girl! that is, she has a large mouth, and a
Mallan in the middle of it. There is Jemima, "who enjoys such delicate
health "--_that_ is, she has no bust, and wears a scarf. Then there is
Grace, who is all for evening rambles, and the "Pilgrim of Love;" and
Fanny, who can _not_ help talking; and whom, in its turn, talking
certainly cannot help. They are remarkable for doing a little of
everything at all times. Whether it be designing on worsted or on
bachelors--whether concerting overtures musical or matrimonial; the same
pretty development of the shoulder through that troublesome scarf--the
same hasty confusion in drawing it on again, and referring to the watch to
see what time it is--displays the mind ever intent on the great object of
their career. But they seldom marry (unless, in desperation, their
cousins), for they despise the rank which they affect to have quitted--and
no man of sense ever loved a Tiptoe. So they continue at home until the
house is broken up; and then they retire in a galaxy to some provincial
Belle Vue-terrace or Prospect-place; where they endeavour to forestall the
bachelors with promiscuous orange-blossoms and maidenly susceptibilities.
We have characterised these heart-burning efforts after "station," as
originating with, and maintained by, the female branches of the family;
and they are so--but, nevertheless, their influence on the young men is no
less destructive than certain. It is a fact, that, the more restraint that
is inflicted on these individuals in the gilded drawing-room at home, the
more do they crave after the unshackled enjoyment of their animal
vulgarity abroad. Their principal characteristics are a love of large
plaids, and a choice vocabulary of popular idiomatic forms of speech; and
these will sufficiently define them in the saloons of the theatres and in
the cigar divans. But they are not ever thus. By no means. At home (which
does not naturally indicate their own house), having donned their "other
waistcoat" and their pin (emblematic of a blue hand grasping an egg, or of
a butterfly poised on a wheel)--pop! they are _gentlemen_. With the
hebdomadal sovereign straggling in the extreme verge of their
pockets--with the afternoon rebuke of the "principal," or peradventure of
some senior clerk, still echoing in their ears--they are GENTLEMEN. They
are desired to be such by their mother and sisters, and so they talk about
cool hundreds--and the points of horses--and (on the strength of the
dramatic criticisms in the _Satirist_) of Grisi in _Norma_, and Persiani
in _La Sonnambula_--of Taglioni and Cerito--of last season and the season
before that.
We know not how far the readers of PUNCH may be inclined to approve so
prosy an article as this in their pet periodical; but we have ventured to
appeal to them (as the most sensible people in the country) against a
class of shallow empirics, who have managed to glide unchidden into our
homes and our families, to chill the one and to estrange the other.
Surely, surely, we were unworthy of our descent, could we see unmoved our
lovely English girls, whose modesty was wont to be equalled only by their
beauty, concentrating all their desires and their energies on a good
match; or our reverend English matrons, the pride and honour of the land,
employing themselves in the manufacture of fish-bone blanc-mange and
mucilaginous tipsy-cakes; or our young Englishmen, our hope and our
resource, spending themselves in the debasing contamination of cigars and
alcohol.
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