If gilt were only gold, or sugar-candy common sense, what a fine thing
our society would be! If to lavish money upon _objets de vertu_,
to wear the most costly dresses, and always to have them cut in the
height of the fashion; to build houses thirty feet broad, as if they
were palaces; to furnish them with all the luxurious devices of
Parisian genius; to give superb banquets; at which your guests laugh,
and which make you miserable; to drive a fine carriage and ape the
European liveries, and crests, and coats-of-arms; to resent the
friendly advances of your baker’s wife, and the lady of your butcher,
(you being yourself a cobbler’s daughter); to talk much of the “old
families” and of your aristocratic foreign friends; to despise labour;
to prate of “good society;” to travesty and parody, in every
conceivable way, a society which we know only in books and by the
superficial observation of foreign travel, which arises out of a
social organization entirely unknown to us, and which is opposed to
our fundamental and essential principles; if all this were fine, what
a prodigiously fine society would ours be!
This occurred to us upon lately receiving a card of invitation to a
brilliant ball. We were quietly ruminating over our evening fire, with
Disraeli’s Wellington speech, “all tears,” in our hands, with the
account of a great man’s burial, and a little man’s triumph across the
channel. So many great men gone, we mused, and such great crises
impending! This democratic movement in Europe; Kossuth--and Mazzini
waiting for the moment to give the word; the Russian bear watchfully
sucking his paws; the Napoleonic empire redivivus; Cuba, and
annexation, and slavery; California and Australia, and the consequent
considerations of political economy; dear me! exclaimed we, putting on
a fresh hodful of coal, we must look a little into the state of
parties.
As we put down the coal-scuttle there was a knock at the door. We
said, “come in,” and in came a neat Alhambra-watered envelope,
containing the announcement that the queen of fashion was “at home”
that evening week. Later in the evening came a friend to smoke a
cigar. The card was lying upon the table, and he read it with
eagerness. “You’ll go, of course,” said he, “for you will meet all
the ‘best society.’”
Shall we, truly? Shall we really see the “best society of the city,”
the picked flower of its genius, character, and beauty? What makes the
“best society” of men and women? The noblest specimens of each, of
course. The men who mould the time, who refresh our faith in heroism
and virtue, who make Plato and Zeno, and Shakespeare, and all
Shakespeare’s gentlemen, possible, again. The women, whose beauty, and
sweetness, and dignity, and high accomplishment, and grace, make us
understand the Greek Mythology, and weaken our desire to have some
glimpse of the most famous women of history. The “best society” is
that in which the virtues are most shining, which is the most
charitable, forgiving, long-suffering, modest, and innocent. The
“best society” is, in its very name, that in which there is the least
hypocrisy and insincerity of all kinds, which recoils from, and
blasts, artificiality, which is anxious to be all that it is possible
to be, and which sternly reprobates all shallow pretence, all
coxcombry and foppery, and insists upon simplicity as the infallible
characteristic of true worth. That is the “best society,” which
comprises the best men and women.
Had we recently arrived from the moon, we might, upon hearing that we
were to meet the “best society,” have fancied that we were about to
enjoy an opportunity not to be overvalued. But unfortunately we were
not so freshly arrived. We had received other cards, and had perfected
our toilette many times, to meet this same society, so magnificently
described, and had found it the least “best” of all. Who compose it?
Whom shall we meet if we go to this ball? We shall meet three classes
of persons: first, those who are rich, and who have all that money can
buy; second, those who belong to what are technically called “the good
old families,” because some ancestor was a man of mark in the state or
country, or was very rich, and has kept the fortune in the family; and
thirdly, a swarm of youths who can dance dexterously, and who are
invited for that purpose. Now these are all arbitrary and factitious
distinctions upon which to found so profound a social difference as
that which exists in American, or, at least, in New York
society. First, as a general rule, the rich men of every community who
make their own money are not the most generally intelligent and
cultivated. They have a shrewd talent which secures a fortune, and
which keeps them closely at the work of amassing from their youngest
years until they are old. They are sturdy men of simple tastes
often. Sometimes, though rarely, very generous, but necessarily with
an altogether false and exaggerated idea of the importance of
money. They are rather rough, unsympathetic, and, perhaps, selfish
class, who, themselves, despise purple and fine linen, and still
prefer a cot-bed and a bare room, although they may be worth
millions. But they are married to scheming, or ambitious, or
disappointed women, whose life is a prolonged pageant, and they are
dragged hither and thither in it, are bled of their golden blood, and
forced into a position they do not covet and which they despise. Then
there are the inheritors of wealth. How many of them inherit the
valiant genius and hard frugality which built up their fortunes; how
many acknowledge the stern and heavy responsibility of their
opportunities; how many refuse to dream their lives away in a Sybarite
luxury; how many are smitten with the lofty ambition of achieving an
enduring name by works of a permanent value; how many do not dwindle
into dainty dilettanti, and dilute their manhood with factitious
sentimentality instead of a hearty human sympathy; how many are not
satisfied with having the fastest horses and the “crackest” carriages,
and an unlimited wardrobe, and a weak affectation and puerile
imitation of foreign life?
{Illustration}
And who are these of our secondly, these “old families”? The spirit of
our time and of our country knows no such thing, but the habitué of
society hears constantly of “a good family.” It means simply, the
collective mass of children, grandchildren, nephews, nieces, and
descendants of some man who deserved well of his country, and whom his
country honors. But sad is the heritage of a great name! The son of
Burke will inevitably be measured by Burke. The niece of Pope must
show some superiority to other women (so to speak), or her equality is
inferiority. The feeling of men attributes some magical charm to
blood, and we look to see the daughter of Helen as fair as her mother,
and the son of Shakespeare musical as his sire. If they are not so, if
they are merely names, and common persons--if there is no Burke, nor
Shakespeare, nor Washington, nor Bacon, in their words, or actions, or
lives, then we must pity them, and pass gently on, not upbraiding
them, but regretting that it is one of the laws of greatness that it
dwindles all things in its vicinity, which would otherwise show large
enough. Nay, in our regard for the great man, we may even admit to a
compassionate honor, as pensioners upon our charity, those who bear
and transmit his name. But if these heirs should presume upon that
fame, and claim any precedence of living men and women because their
dead grandfather was a hero,--they must be shown the door directly. We
should dread to be born a Percy, or a Colonna, or a Bonaparte. We
should not like to be the second Duke of Wellington, nor Charles
Dickens, jr. It is a terrible thing one would say, to a mind of
honorable feeling, to be pointed out as somebody’s son, or uncle, or
granddaughter, as if the excellence were all derived. It must be a
little humiliating to reflect that if your great uncle had not been
somebody, you would be nobody,--that in fact, you are only a name, and
that, if you should consent to change it for the sake of a fortune, as
is sometimes done, you would cease to be any thing but a rich man. “My
father was President, or Governor of the State,” some pompous man may
say. But, by Jupiter! king of gods and men, what are _you?_ is the
instinctive response. Do you not see, our pompous friend, that you are
only pointing your own unimportance? If your father was Governor of
the State, what right have you to use that fact only to fatten your
self-conceit? Take care, good care; for whether you say it by your
lips or by your life that withering response awaits you,--“then what
are _you?_” If your ancestor was great, you are under bonds to
greatness. If you are small, make haste to learn it betimes, and,
thanking Heaven that your name has been made illustrious, retire into
a corner and keep it, at least, untarnished.
Our thirdly, is a class made by sundry French tailors, bootmakers,
dancing-masters, and Mr. Brown. They are a corps-de-ballet, for the
use of private entertainments. They are fostered by society for the
use of young debutantes, and hardier damsels, who have dared two or
three years of the “tight” polka. They are cultivated for their heels,
not their heads. Their life begins at ten o’clock in the evening, and
lasts until four in the morning. They go home and sleep until nine;
then they reel, sleepy, to counting-houses and offices, and doze on
desks until dinner-time. Or, unable to do that, they are actively at
work all day, and their cheeks grow pale, and their lips thin, and
their eyes bloodshot and hollow, and they drag themselves home at
evening to catch a nap until the ball begins, or to dine and smoke at
their club, and be very manly with punches and coarse stories; and
then to rush into hot and glittering rooms and seize very decolleté
girls closely around the waist, and dash with them around an area of
stretched linen, saying in the panting pauses, “How very hot it is!”
“How very pretty Miss Podge looks!” “What a good redowa!” “Are you
going to Mrs. Potiphar’s?”
Is this the assembled flower of manhood and womanhood, called “best
society,” and to see which is so envied a privilege? If such are the
elements, can we be long in arriving at the present state, and
necessary future condition of parties?
“Vanity Fair,” is peculiarly a picture of modern society. It aims at
English follies, but its mark is universal, as the madness is. It is
called a satire, but after much diligent reading, we cannot discover
the satire. A state of society not at all superior to that of “Vanity
Fair” is not unknown to our experience; and, unless truth-telling be
satire; unless the most tragically real portraiture be satire; unless
scalding tears of sorrow, and the bitter regret of a manly mind over
the miserable spectacle of artificiality, wasted powers, misdirected
energies, and lost opportunities, be satirical; we do not find satire
in that sad story. The reader closes it with a grief beyond tears. It
leaves a vague apprehension in the mind, as if we should suspect the
air to be poisoned. It suggests the terrible thought of the
enfeebling of moral power, and the deterioration of noble character,
as a necessary consequence of contact with “society.” Every man looks
suddenly and sharply around him, and accosts himself and his
neighbors, to ascertain if they are all parties to this
corruption. Sentimental youths and maidens, upon velvet sofas, or in
calf-bound libraries, resolve that it is an insult to human
nature--are sure that their velvet and calf-bound friends are not like
the dramatis personae of “Vanity Fair,” and that the drama is
therefore hideous and unreal. They should remember, what they
uniformly and universally forget, that we are not invited, upon the
rising of the curtain to behold a cosmorama, or picture of the world,
but a representation of that part of it called Vanity Fair. What its
just limits are-how far its poisonous purlieus reach--how much of the
world’s air is tainted by it, is a question which every thoughtful man
will ask himself, with a shudder, and look sadly around, to answer. If
the sentimental objectors rally again to the charge, and declare that,
if we wish to improve the world, its virtuous ambition must be piqued
and stimulated by making the shining heights of “the ideal” more
radiant; we reply, that none shall surpass us in honoring the men
whose creations of beauty inspire and instruct mankind. But if they
benefit the world, it is no less true that a vivid apprehension of the
depths into which we are sunken or may sink, nerves the soul’s courage
quite as much as the alluring mirage of the happy heights we may
attain. “To hold the mirror up to Nature,” is still the most potent
method of shaming sin and strengthening virtue.
If “Vanity Fair” is a satire, what novel of society is not? Are
“Vivian Grey,” and “Pelham,” and the long catalogue of books
illustrating English, or the host of Balzacs, Sands, Sues, and Dumas,
that paint French society, any less satires? Nay, if you should catch
any dandy in Broadway, or in Pall-Mall, or upon the Boulevards, this
very morning, and write a coldly true history of his life and actions,
his doings and undoings, would it not be the most scathing and
tremendous satire?--if by satire you mean the consuming melancholy of
the conviction, that the life of that pendant to a moustache, is an
insult to the possible life of a man?
We have read of a hypocrisy so thorough, that it was surprised you
should think it hypocritical; and we have bitterly thought of the
saying, when hearing one mother say of another mother’s child, that
she had “made a good match,” because the girl was betrothed to a
stupid boy whose father was rich. The remark was the key of our
social feeling.
Let us look at it a little, and, first of all, let the reader consider
the criticism, and not the critic. We may like very well, in our
individual capacity, to partake of the delicacies prepared by our
hostess’s _chef_, we may not be adverse to _paté_, and myriad _objets
de goût_, and if you caught us in a corner at the next ball, putting
away a fair share of _dinde aux truffes_, we know you would have at us,
in a tone of great moral indignation, and wish to know why we sneaked
into great houses, eating good suppers, and drinking choice wines,
and then went away with an indigestion, to write dyspeptic disgusts
at society.
We might reply that it is necessary to know something of a subject
before writing about it, and that if a man wished to describe the
habits of South Sea Islanders, it is useless to go to Greenland; we
might also confess a partiality for _paté_, and a tenderness for
_truffes_, and acknowledge that, considering our single absence
would not put down extravagant, pompous parties, we were not strong
enough to let the morsels drop into unappreciating mouths; or we might
say, that if a man invited us to see his new house, it would not be
ungracious nor insulting to his hospitality, to point out whatever
weak parts we might detect in it, nor to declare our candid
conviction, that it was built upon wrong principles and could not
stand. He might believe us if we had been in the house, but he
certainly would not, if we had never seen it. Nor would it be a very
wise reply upon his part, that we might build a better if we didn’t
like that. We are not fond of David’s pictures, but we certainly could
never paint half so well; nor of Pope’s poetry, but posterity will
never hear of our verses. Criticism is not construction, it is
observation. If we could surpass in its own way every thing which
displeased us, we should make short work of it, and instead of showing
what fatal blemishes deform our present society, we should present a
specimen of perfection, directly.
{Illustration}
We went to the brilliant ball. There was too much of everything. Too
much light, and eating, and drinking, and dancing, and flirting, and
dressing, and feigning, and smirking, and much too many people. Good
taste insists first upon fitness. But why had Mrs. Potiphar given this
ball? We inquired industriously, and learned it was because she did
not give one last year. Is it then essential to do this thing
biennially? inquired we with some trepidation. “Certainly,” was the
bland reply, “or society will forget you.” Everybody was unhappy at
Mrs. Potiphar’s, save a few girls and boys, who danced violently all
the evening. Those who did not dance walked up and down the rooms as
well as they could, squeezing by non-dancing ladies, causing them to
swear in their hearts as the brusque broadcloth carried away the light
outworks of gauze and gossamer. The dowagers, ranged in solid
phalanx, occupied all the chairs and sofas against the wall, and
fanned themselves until supper-time, looking at each other’s diamonds,
and criticising the toilettes of the younger ladies, each narrowly
watching her peculiar Polly Jane, that she did not betray too much
interest in any man who was not of a certain fortune. It is the cold,
vulgar truth, madam, nor are we in the slightest degree
exaggerating. Elderly gentlemen, twisting single gloves in a very
wretched manner, came up and bowed to the dowagers, and smirked, and
said it was a pleasant party, and a handsome house, and then clutched
their hands behind them, and walked miserably away, looking as affable
as possible. And the dowagers made a little fun of the elderly
gentlemen, among themselves, as they walked away.
Then came the younger non-dancing men--a class of the community who
wear black cravats and waistcoats, and thrust their thumbs and
forefingers in their waistcoat pockets, and are called “talking men.”
Some of them are literary, and affect the philosopher; have, perhaps,
written a book or two, and are a small species of lion to very young
ladies. Some are of the _blasé_ kind; men who affect the
extremest elegance, and are reputed “so aristocratic,” and who care
for nothing in particular, but wish they had not been born gentlemen,
in which case they might have escaped ennui. These gentlemen stand
with hat in hand, and coats and trowsers most unexceptionable. They
are the “so gentlemanly” persons of whom one hears a great deal, but
which seems to mean nothing but cleanliness. Vivian Grey and Pelham
are the models of their ambition, and they succeed in being
Pendennis. They enjoy the reputation of being “very clever,” and “very
talented fellows,” “smart chaps,” etc., but they refrain from proving
what is so generously conceded. They are often men of a certain
cultivation. They have travelled, many of them,--spending a year or
two in Paris, and a month or two in the rest of Europe. Consequently
they endure society at home, with a smile, and a shrug, and a graceful
superciliousness, which is very engaging. They are perfectly at home,
and they rather despise Young America, which, in the next room, is
diligently earning its invitation. They prefer to hover about the
ladies who did not come out this season, but are a little used to the
world, with whom they are upon most friendly terms, and who criticise
together very freely all the great events in the great world of
fashion.
These elegant Pendennises we saw at Mrs. Potiphar’s, but not without a
sadness which can hardly be explained. They had been boys once, all of
them, fresh and frank-hearted, and full of a noble ambition. They had
read and pondered the histories of great men; how they resolved, and
struggled, and achieved. In the pure portraiture of genius, they had
loved and honored noble women, and each young heart was sworn to truth
and the service of beauty. Those feelings were chivalric and
fair. Those boyish instincts clung to whatever was lovely, and
rejected the specious snare, however graceful and elegant. They
sailed, new knights, upon that old and endless crusade against
hypocrisy and the devil, and they were lost in the luxury of Corinth,
nor longer seek the difficult shores beyond. A present smile was worth
a future laurel. The ease of the moment was worth immortal
tranquillity. They renounced the stern worship of the unknown God, and
acknowledged the deities of Athens. But the seal of their shame is
their own smile at their early dreams, and the high hopes of their
boyhood, their sneering infidelity of simplicity, their skepticism of
motives and of men. Youths, whose younger years were fervid with the
resolution to strike and win, to deserve, at least, a gentle
remembrance, if not a dazzling fame, are content to eat, and drink,
and sleep well; to go to the opera and all the balls; to be known as
“gentlemanly,” and “aristocratic,” and “dangerous,” and “elegant;” to
cherish a luxurious and enervating indolence, and to “succeed,” upon
the cheap reputation of having been “fast” in Paris. The end of such
men is evident enough from the beginning. They are snuffed out by a
“great match,” and become an appendage to a rich woman; or they
dwindle off into old roués, men of the world in sad earnest, and not
with elegant affectation, _blasé_; and as they began Arthur
Pendennises, so they end the Major. But, believe it, that old fossil
heart is wrung sometimes by a mortal pang, as it remembers those
squandered opportunities and that lost life.
From these groups we passed into the dancing-room. We have seen
dancing in other countries, and dressing. We have certainly never seen
gentlemen dance so easily, gracefully and well as the American. But
the _style_ of dancing, in its whirl, its rush, its fury, is only
equalled by that of the masked balls at the French Opera, and the
balls at the _Salle Valentino_, the _Jardin Mabille_, the
_Chateau Rouge_, and other favorite resorts of Parisian Grisettes
and Lorettes. We saw a few young men looking upon the dance very
soberly, and, upon inquiry, learned that they were engaged to certain
ladies of the corps-de-ballet. Nor did we wonder that the spectacle of
a young woman whirling in a _décolleté_ state, and in the embrace
of a warm youth, around a heated room, induced a little sobriety upon
her lover’s face, if not a sadness in his heart. Amusement,
recreation, enjoyment! There are no more beautiful things. But this
proceeding falls under another head. We watch the various toilettes of
these bounding belles. They were rich and tasteful. But a man at our
elbow, of experience and shrewd observation, said, with a sneer, for
which we called him to account, “I observe that American ladies are so
rich in charms that they are not at all chary of them. It is certainly
generous to us miserable blackcoats. But, do you know, it strikes me
as a generosity of display that must necessarily leave the donor
poorer in maidenly feeling.” We thought ourselves cynical, but this
was intolerable; and in a very crisp manner we demanded an apology.
“Why,” responded our friend with more of sadness than of satire in his
tone, “why are you so exasperated? Look at this scene! Consider that
this is, really, the life of these girls. This is what they ‘come out’
for. This is the end of their ambition. They think of it, dream of
it, long for it. Is it amusement? Yes, to a few, possibly. But listen,
and gather, if you can, from their remarks (when they make any) that
they have any thought beyond this, and going to church very rigidly on
Sunday. The vigor of polking and church-going are proportioned; as is
the one so is the other. My young friend, I am no ascetic, and do not
suppose a man is damned because he dances. But Life is not a ball
(more’s the pity, truly, for these butterflies), nor is its sole duty
and delight, dancing. When I consider this spectacle,--when I remember
what a noble and beautiful woman is, what a manly man,--when I reel,
dazzled by this glare, drunken with these perfumes, confused by this
alluring music, and reflect upon the enormous sums wasted in a pompous
profusion that delights no one,--when I look around upon all this
rampant vulgarity in tinsel and Brussels lace, and think how fortunes
go, how men struggle and lose the bloom of their honesty, how women
hide in a smiling pretence, and eye with caustic glances their
neighbor’s newer house, diamonds, or porcelain, and observe their
daughters, such as these,--why, I tremble and tremble, and this scene
to-night, every ‘crack’ ball this winter will be, not the pleasant
society of men and women, but--even in this young country--an orgie
such as rotting Corinth saw, a frenzied festival of Rome in its
decadence.”
There was a sober truth in this bitterness, and we turned away to
escape the sombre thought of the moment. Addressing one of the panting
Houris who stood melting in a window, we spoke (and confess how
absurdly) of the Düsseldorf Gallery. It was merely to avoid saying how
warm the room was, and how pleasant the party was; facts upon which we
had already sufficiently enlarged. “Yes, they are pretty pictures; but
la! how long it must have taken Mr. Düsseldorf to paint them all;” was
the reply.
By the Farnesian Hercules! no Roman sylph in her city’s decline would
ever have called the sun-god, Mr. Apollo. We hope that Houri melted
entirely away in the window, but we certainly did not stay to see.
Passing out toward the supper-room we encountered two young
men. “What, Hal,” said one, “_you_ at Mrs. Potiphar’s?” It seems
that Hal was a sprig of one of the old “families.” “Well, Joe,” said
Hal, a little confused, “it _is_ a little strange. The fact is I
didn’t mean to be here, but I concluded to compromise by coming,
_and not being introduced to the host_.” Hal could come, eat
Potiphar’s supper, drink his wines, spoil his carpets, laugh at his
fashionable struggles, and affect the puppyism of a foreign Lord,
because he disgraced the name of a man who had done some service
somewhere, while Potiphar was only an honest man who made a fortune.
The supper-room was a pleasant place. The table was covered with a
chaos of supper. Everything sweet and rare, and hot and cold, solid
and liquid, was there. It was the very apotheosis of gilt
gingerbread. There was a universal rush and struggle. The charge of
the guards at Waterloo was nothing to it. Jellies, custards,
oyster-soup, ice-cream, wine and water, gushed in profuse cascades
over transparent precipices of _tulle_, muslin, gauze, silk, and
satin. Clumsy boys tumbled against costly dresses and smeared them
with preserves,--when clean plates failed, the contents of plates
already used were quietly “chucked” under the table--heeltaps of
champagne were poured into the oyster tureens or overflowed upon
plates to clear the glasses--wine of all kinds flowed in torrents,
particularly down the throats of very young men, who evinced their
manhood by becoming noisy, troublesome, and disgusting, and were
finally either led, sick, into the hat room, or carried out of the
way, drunk. The supper over, the young people attended by their
matrons descended to the dancing-room for the “German.” This is a
dance commencing usually at midnight or a little after, and continuing
indefinitely toward daybreak. The young people were attended by their
matrons, who were there to supervise the morals and manners of their
charges. To secure the performance of this duty, the young people took
good care to sit where the matrons could not see them, nor did they,
by any chance, look toward the quarter in which the matrons sat. In
that quarter through all the varying mazes of the prolonged dance, to
two o’clock, to three, to four, sat the bediamonded dowagers, the
mothers, the matrons,--against nature, against common sense. They
babbled with each other, they drowsed, they dozed. Their fans fell
listless into their laps. In the adjoining room, out of the waking
sight, even, of the then sleeping mammas, the daughters whirled in the
close embrace of partners who had brought down bottles of champagne
from the supper-room, and put them by the side of their chairs for
occasional refreshment during the dance. The dizzy hours staggered
by--“Azalia, you _must_ come now,” had been already said a dozen
times, but only as by the scribes. Finally it was declared with
authority. Azalia went,--Amelia--Arabella. The rest followed. There
was a prolonged cloaking, there were lingering farewells. A few papas
were in the supper-room, sitting among the _débris_ of game. A
few young non-dancing husbands sat beneath gas unnaturally bright,
reading whatever chance book was at hand, and thinking of the young
child at home waiting for mamma who was dancing the “German” below. A
few exhausted matrons sat in the robing-room, tired, sad, wishing Jane
would come up; assailed at intervals by a vague suspicion that it was
not quite worth while; wondering how it was they used to have such
good times at balls; yawning and looking at their watches; while the
regular beat of the music below, with sardonic sadness, continued. At
last Jane came up, had had the most glorious time, and went down with
mamma to the carriage, and so drove home. Even the last Jane went--the
last noisy youth was expelled, and Mr. and Mrs. Potiphar having duly
performed their biennial social duty, dismissed the music, ordered the
servants to count the spoons, and an hour or two after daylight went
to bed. Enviable Mr. and Mrs. Potiphar!
We are now prepared for the great moral indignation of the friend who
saw us eating our _dinde aux truffes_ in that remarkable
supper-room. We are waiting to hear him say in the most moderate and
“gentlemanly” manner, that it is all very well to select flaws and
present them as specimens, and to learn from him, possibly with
indignant publicity, that the present condition of parties is not what
we have intimated. Or, in his quiet and pointed way, he may smile at
our fiery assault upon edged flounces and nuga pyramids, and the
kingdom of Lilliput in general.
Yet, after all, and despite the youths who are led out, and carried
home, or who stumble through the “German,” this is a sober matter. My
friend told us we should see the “best society.” But he is a
prodigious wag. Who make this country? From whom is its character of
unparalleled enterprise, heroism and success derived? Who have given
it its place in the respect and the fear of the world? Who, annually,
recruit its energies, confirm its progress, and secure its triumph?
Who are its characteristic children, the pith, the sinew, the bone, of
its prosperity? Who found, and direct, and continue its manifold
institutions of mercy and education? Who are, essentially, Americans?
Indignant friend, these classes, whoever they may be, are the “best
society,” because they alone are the representatives of its character
and cultivation. They are the “best society” of New York, of Boston,
of Baltimore, of St. Louis, of New Orleans, whether they live upon six
hundred or sixty thousand dollars a year--whether they inhabit
princely houses in fashionable streets (which they often do), or
not--whether their sons have graduated at Celarius’ and the _Jardin
Mabille_, or have never been out of their fathers’ shops--whether
they have “air” and “style,” and are “so gentlemanly” and “so
aristocratic,” or not. Your shoemaker, your lawyer, your butcher, your
clergyman--if they are simple and steady, and, whether rich or poor,
are unseduced by the sirens of extravagance and ruinous display, help
make up the “best society.” For that mystic communion is not composed
of the rich, but of the worthy; and is “best” by its virtues, and not
by its vices. When Johnson, Burke, Goldsmith, Garrick, Reynolds, and
their friends, met at supper in Goldsmith’s rooms, where was the “best
society” in England? When George the Fourth outraged humanity and
decency in his treatment of Queen Caroline, who was the first
scoundrel in Europe?
Pause yet a moment, indignant friend. Whose habits and principles
would ruin this country as rapidly as it has been made? Who are
enamored of a puerile imitation of foreign splendors? Who strenuously
endeavor to graft the questionable points of Parisian society upon our
own? Who pass a few years in Europe, and return skeptical of
republicanism and human improvement, longing and sighing for more
sharply emphasised social distinctions? Who squander with profuse
recklessness the hard-earned fortunes of their sires? Who diligently
devote their time to nothing, foolishly and wrongly supposing that a
young English nobleman has nothing to do? Who, in fine, evince by
their collective conduct, that they regard their Americanism as a
misfortune, and are so the most deadly enemies of their country? None
but what our wag facetiously termed “the best society.”
If the reader doubts, let him consider its practical results in any
great emporium of “best society.” Marriage is there regarded as a
luxury, too expensive for any but the sons of rich men, or fortunate
young men. We once heard an eminent divine assert, and only half in
sport, that the rate of living was advancing so incredibly, that
weddings in his experience were perceptibly diminishing. The reasons
might have been many and various. But we all acknowledge the fact. On
the other hand, and about the same time, a lovely damsel (ah!
Clorinda,) whose father was not wealthy, who had no prospective means
of support, who could do nothing but polka to perfection, who
literally knew almost nothing, and who constantly shocked every fairly
intelligent person by the glaring ignorance betrayed in her remarks,
informed a friend at one of the Saratoga balls, whither he had made
haste to meet “the best society,” that there were “not more than three
good matches in society!” _La Dame aux Camélias_, Marie
Duplessis, was, to our fancy, a much more feminine, and admirable, and
moral, and human person, than the adored Clorinda. And yet what she
said was the legitimate result of the state of our fashionable
society. It worships wealth, and the pomp which wealth can purchase,
more than virtue, genius, or beauty. We may be told that it has always
been so in every country, and that the fine society of all lands is as
profuse and flashy as our own. We deny it, flatly. Neither English,
nor French, nor Italian, nor German society, is so unspeakably barren
as that which is technically called “society” here. In London, and
Paris, and Vienna, and Rome, all the really eminent men and women help
make up the mass of society. A party is not a mere ball, but it is a
congress of the wit, beauty, and fame of the capital. It is worth
while to dress, if you shall meet Macaulay, or Hallam, or Guizot, or
Thiers, or Landseer, or Delaroche,--Mrs. Norton, the Misses Berry,
Madame Recamier, and all the brilliant women and famous
foreigners. But why should we desert the pleasant pages of those men,
and the recorded gossip of those women, to be squeezed flat against a
wall, while young Doughface pours oyster gravy down our shirt front,
and Carolina Pettitoes wonders at “Mr. Düsseldorf’s” industry?
If intelligent people decline to go, you justly remark, it is their
own fault. Yes, but if they stay away it is very certainly their great
gain. The elderly people are always neglected with us, and nothing
surprises intelligent strangers more, than the tyrannical supremacy of
Young America. But we are not surprised at this neglect. How can we be
if we have our eyes open? When Caroline Pettitoes retreats from the
floor to the sofa, and instead of a “polker” figures at parties as a
matron, do you suppose that “tough old Joes” like ourselves are going
to desert the young Caroline upon the floor, for Madame Pettitoes upon
the sofa? If the pretty young Caroline, with youth, health, freshness,
a fine, budding form, and wreathed in a semi-transparent haze of
flounced and flowered gauze, is so vapid that we prefer to accost her
with our eyes alone, and not with our tongues, is the same Caroline
married into a Madame Pettitoes, and fanning herself upon a sofa,--no
longer particularly fresh, nor young, nor pretty, and no longer
budding but very fully blown,--likely to be fascinating in
conversation? We cannot wonder that the whole connection of Pettitoes,
when advanced to the matron state, is entirely neglected. Proper
homage to age we can all pay at home, to our parents and
grandparents. Proper respect for some persons is best preserved by
avoiding their neighborhood.
And what, think you, is the influence of this extravagant expense and
senseless show upon these same young men and women? We can easily
discover. It saps their noble ambition, assails their health, lowers
their estimate of men and their reverence for women, cherishes an
eager and aimless rivalry, weakens true feeling, wipes away the bloom
of true modesty, and induces an ennui, a satiety, and a kind of
dilettante misanthropy, which is only the more monstrous because it is
undoubtedly real. You shall hear young men of intelligence and
cultivation, to whom the unprecedented circumstances of this country
offer opportunities of a great and beneficent career, complaining that
they were born within this blighted circle--regretting that they were
not bakers and tallow-chandlers, and under no obligation to keep up
appearances--deliberately surrendering all the golden possibilities of
that Future which this country, beyond all others, holds before
them--sighing that they are not rich enough to marry the girls they
love, and bitterly upbraiding fortune that they are not
millionnaires--suffering the vigor of their years to exhale in idle
wishes and pointless regrets--disgracing their manhood by lying in
wait behind their “so gentlemanly” and “aristocratic” manners, until
they can pounce upon a “fortune” and ensnare an heiress into
matrimony: and so having dragged their gifts, their horses of the sun,
into a service which shames out of them all their native pride and
power, they sink in the mire, and their peers and emulators exclaim
that they have “made a good thing of it.”
Are these the processes by which a noble race is made and perpetuated?
At Mrs. Potiphar’s we heard several Pendennises longing for a similar
luxury, and announcing their firm purpose, never to have wives, nor
houses, until they could have them as splendid as jewelled
Mrs. Potiphar, and her palace, thirty feet front. Where were their
heads and their hearts, and their arms? How looks this craven
despondency, before the stern virtues of the ages we call dark? When a
man is so voluntarily imbecile as to regret he is not rich, if that is
what he wants, before he has struck a blow for wealth; or so dastardly
as to renounce the prospect of love, because sitting sighing, in
velvet dressing-gown and slippers, he does not see his way clear to
ten thousand a year; when young women coiffed _à merveille_, of
unexceptionable “style,” who, with or without a prospective penny,
secretly look down upon honest women who struggle for their
livelihood, like noble and Christian beings, and, as such, are
rewarded; in whose society a man must forget that he has ever read,
thought or felt; who destroy in the mind, the fair ideal of woman,
which the genius of art and poetry, and love, their inspirer, has
created; then it seems to us, it is high time that the subject should
be regarded not as a matter of breaking butterflies upon the wheel,
but as a sad and sober question, in whose solution, all fathers and
mothers, and the state itself, are interested. When keen observers,
and men of the world, from Europe, are amazed and appalled at the
giddy whirl and frenzied rush of our society--a society singular in
history, for the exaggerated prominence it assigns to wealth,
irrespective of the talents that amassed it, they and their possessor
being usually hustled out of sight--is it not quite time to ponder a
little upon the Court of Louis XIV., and the “merrie days” of King
Charles II.? Is it not clear that, if what our good wag, with caustic
irony, called “best society,” were really such, every thoughtful man
would read upon Mrs. Potiphar’s softly-tinted walls, the terrible
“mene, mene” of imminent destruction?
Venice in her purple prime of luxury, when the famous law was passed,
making all gondolas black, that the nobles should not squander
fortunes upon them, was not more luxurious than New York today. Our
hotels have a superficial splendor, derived from a profusion of gilt
and paint, wood and damask. Yet, in not one of them can the traveller
be so quietly comfortable as in an English Inn, and nowhere in New
York can the stranger procure a dinner, at once so neat and elegant,
and economical, as at scores of Cafes in Paris. The fever of display
has consumed comfort. A gondola plated with gold was no easier than a
black wooden one. We could well spare a little gilt upon the walls,
for more cleanliness upon the public table; nor is it worth while to
cover the walls with mirrors to reflect a want of comfort, One prefers
a wooden bench to a greasy velvet cushion, and a sanded floor to a
soiled and threadbare carpet. An insipid uniformity is the
Procrustes-bed, upon which “society” is stretched. Every new house is
the counterpart of every other, with the exception of more gilt, if
the owner can afford it. The interior arrangement, instead of being
characteristic, instead of revealing something of the tastes and
feelings of the owner, is rigorously conformed to every other
interior. The same hollow and tame complaisance rules in the
intercourse of society. Who dares say precisely what he thinks upon a
great topic? What youth ventures to say sharp things, of slavery, for
instance, at a polite dinner-table? What girl dares wear curls, when
Martelle prescribes puffs or bandeaux? What specimen of young America
dares have his trowsers loose or wear straps to them? We want
individuality, heroism, and, if necessary, an uncompromising
persistence in difference.
This is the present state of parties. They are wildly extravagant,
full of senseless display; they are avoided by the pleasant and
intelligent, and swarm with reckless regiments of “Brown’s men.” The
ends of the earth contribute their choicest products to the supper,
and there is everything that wealth can purchase, and all the spacious
splendor that thirty feet front can afford. They are hot, and crowded,
and glaring. There is a little weak scandal, venomous, not witty, and
a stream of weary platitude, mortifying to every sensible person.
Will any of our Pendennis friends intermit their indignation for a
moment, and consider how many good things they have said or heard
during the season? If Mr. Potiphar’s eyes should chance to fall here,
will he reckon the amount of satisfaction and enjoyment he derived
from Mrs. Potiphar’s ball, and will that lady candidly confess what
she gained from it besides weariness and disgust? What eloquent
sermons we remember to have heard in which the sins and the sinners of
Babylon, Jericho and Gomorrah were scathed with holy indignation. The
cloth is very hard upon Cain, and completely routs the erring kings of
Judah. The Spanish Inquisition, too, gets frightful knocks, and there
is much eloquent exhortation to preach the gospel in the interior of
Siam. Let it be preached there, and God speed the word. But also let
us have a text or two in Broadway and the Avenue.
The best sermon ever preached upon society, within our knowledge, is
“Vanity Fair.” Is the spirit of that story less true of New York than
of London? Probably we never see Amelia at our parties, nor
Lieutenant George Osborne, nor good gawky Dobbin, nor Mrs. Rebecca
Sharp Crawley, nor old Steyne. We are very much pained, of course,
that any author should take such dreary views of human nature. We,
for our parts, all go to Mrs. Potiphar’s to refresh our faith in men
and women. Generosity, amiability, a catholic charity, simplicity,
taste, sense, high cultivation, and intelligence, distinguish our
parties. The statesman seeks their stimulating influence; the literary
man, after the day’s labour, desires the repose of their elegant
conversation; the professional man and the merchant hurry up from down
town to shuffle off the coil of heavy duty, and forget the drudgery of
life in the agreeable picture of its amenities and graces presented by
Mrs. Potiphar’s ball. Is this account of the matter, or “Vanity
Fair,” the satire? What are the prospects of any society of which that
tale is the true history? There is a picture in the Luxembourg
gallery at Paris, “The Decadence of the Romans,” which made the fame
and fortune of Couture, the painter. It represents an orgie in the
court of a temple, during the last days of Rome. A swarm of revellers
occupy the middle of the picture, wreathed in elaborate intricacy of
luxurious posture, men and women intermingled; their faces, in which
the old Roman fire scarcely flickers, brutalized with excess of every
kind; their heads of dishevelled hair bound with coronals of leaves,
while, from goblets of an antique grace, they drain the fiery torrent
which is destroying them. Around the bacchanalian feast stand, lofty
upon pedestals, the statues of old Rome, looking with marble calmness
and the severity of a rebuke beyond words upon the revellers. A youth
of boyish grace, with a wreath woven in his tangled hair, and with red
and drowsy eyes, sits listless upon one pedestal, while upon another
stands a boy, insane with drunkenness, and proffering a dripping
goblet to the marble mouth of the statue. In the corner of the
picture, as if just quitting the court--Rome finally departing--is a
group of Romans with care-worn brows, and hands raised to their faces
in melancholy meditation. In the foreground of the picture, which is
painted with all the sumptuous splendor of Venetian art, is a stately
vase, around which hangs a festoon of gorgeous flowers, its end
dragging upon the pavement. In the background, between the columns,
smiles the blue sky of Italy--the only thing Italian not deteriorated
by time. The careful student of this picture, if he has been long in
Paris, is some day startled by detecting, especially in the faces of
the women represented, a surprising likeness to the women of Paris,
and perceives, with a thrill of dismay, that the models for this
picture of decadent human nature are furnished by the very city in
which he lives.