Don’t you think we are getting very _spirituel_ in this country?
I believe there was nothing else injured except the bed-hangings in
the back room, which were somehow badly burnt and very much torn in
pulling down, and a few of our handsomest shades that were cracked by
the heat, and a few plates, which it was hardly fair to expect
wouldn’t be broken, and the colored glass door in my _escritoire_,
against which Flattie Podge fell as she was dancing with Gauche Boosey;
but he may have been a little excited, you know, and she, poor girl,
couldn’t help tumbling, and as her head hit the glass, of course, it
broke, and cut her head badly, so that the blood ran down and naturally
spoiled her dress; and what little _escritoire_ could stand against
Flattie Podge? So that went, and was a good deal smashed in falling.
That’s all, I think, except that the next day Mrs. Croesus sent a note,
saying that she had lost her largest diamond from her necklace, and she
was sure that it was not in the carriage, nor in her own house, nor
upon the sidewalk, for she had carefully looked everywhere, _and
she would be very glad if I would return it by the bearer._
Think of that.
Well, we hunted everywhere, and found no diamond. I took particular
pains to ask the servants if they had found it, for if they had, they
might as well give it up at once, without expecting any reward from
Mrs. Croesus, who wasn’t very generous. But they all said they hadn’t
found any diamond: and our man John, who you know is so
guileless,--although it _was_ a little mysterious about that
emerald pin of mine,--brought me a bit of glass that had been nicked
out of my large custard dish, and asked me if that was not
Mrs. Croesus’s diamond. I told him no, and gave him a gold dollar for
his honesty. John is an invaluable servant; he is so guileless.
_Do you know I am not so sure about Mrs. Croesus’s diamond!_
Mr. P. made a great howling about the ball. But it was very foolish,
for he got safely to bed by six o’clock, and he need have no trouble
about replacing the curtains, and glass, etc. I shall do all that, and
the sum total will be sent to him in a lump, so that he can pay it.
Men are so unreasonable. Fancy us at seven o’clock that morning, when
I retired. He wasn’t asleep. But whose fault was that?
“Polly,” said he, “that’s the last.”
“Last what?” said I. -- “Last ball at my house,” said he.
“Fiddle-dee-dee,” said I. -- “I tell you, Mrs. Potiphar, I am not going to open my house for a
crowd of people who don’t go away till daylight; who spoil my books
and furniture; involve me in a foolish expense; for a gang of rowdy
boys, who drink my Margaux, and Lafitte, and Marcobrunner, (what kind
of drinks are those, dear Caroline?) and who don’t know Chambertin
from liquorice-water,--for a swarm of persons few of whom we know
fewer, still care for me, and to whom I am only ‘Old Potiphar,’ the
husband of you, a fashionable woman. I am simply resolved to have no
more such tomfoolery in my house.”
“Dear Mr. P.,” said I, “you’ll feel much better when you have
slept. Besides, why do you say such things? Mustn’t we see our
friends, I should like to know; and if we do, are you going to let
your wife receive them in a manner inferior to old Mrs. Podge or
Mrs. Croesus? People will accuse you of meanness, and of treating me
ill; and if some persons hear that you have reduced your style of
living, they will begin to suspect the state of your affairs. Don’t
make any rash vows, Mr. P.,” said I, “but go to sleep.”
(Do you know that speech was just what Mrs. Croesus told me she had
said to her husband under similar circumstances?)
Mr. P. fairly groaned, and I heard that short, strong little word that
sometimes inadvertently drops out of the best regulated mouths, as
young Gooseberry Downe says when he swears before his mother. Do you
know Mrs. Settum Downe? Charming woman, but satirical.
Mr. P. groaned, and said some more ill-natured things, until the clock
struck nine, and he was obliged to get up. I should be sorry to say to
anybody but you, dearest, that I was rather glad of it; for I could
then fall asleep at my ease; and these little connubial felicities (I
think they call them) are so tiresome. But everybody agreed it was a
beautiful ball; and I had the great gratification of hearing young
Lord Mount Ague (you know you danced with him, love) say that it was
quite the same thing as a ball at Buckingham Palace, except, of
course, in size, and the number of persons, and dresses, and jewels,
and the plate, and glass, and supper, and wines, and furnishing of the
rooms, and lights, and some of those things, which are naturally upon
a larger scale at a palace than in a private house. But, he said,
excepting such things, it was quite as fine. I am afraid that Lord
Mount Ague flatters; just a little bit you know.
Yes; and there was young Major Staggers, who said that “Decidedly it
was _the_ party of the season.”
“How odd,” said Mrs. Croesus, to whom I told it, and, I confess, with
a little pride. “What a sympathetic man: that is, for a military man,
I mean. Would you believe, dear Mrs. Potiphar, that he said precisely
the same thing to me two days after my ball?”
Now, Caroline, dearest, _perhaps_ he did!
With all these pleasant things said about one’s party, I cannot see
that it is such a dismal thing as Mr. P. tries to make out. After one
of his solemn talks, I asked Mr. Cheese what he thought of balls,
whether it was so very wicked to dance, and go to parties, if one only
went to church twice a day on Sundays. He patted his lips a moment
with his handkerchief, and then he said,--and, Caroline, you can
always quote the Rev. Cream Cheese as authority,--
“Dear Mrs. Potiphar, it is recorded in Holy Scripture that the King
danced before the Lord.”
Darling, _if anything should happen,_ I don’t believe
he would object much to our dancing.
What gossips we women are, to be sure! I meant to write you about our
new livery and I am afraid I have tired you out already. You remember
when you were here, I said that I meant to have a livery, for my
sister Margaret told me that when they used to drive in Hyde Park,
with the old Marquis of Mammon, it was always so delightful to hear
him say, “Ah! there is Lady Lobster’s livery.”
It was so aristocratic. And in countries where certain colors
distinguish certain families, and are hereditary, so to say, it is
convenient and pleasant to recognize a coat-of-arms, or a livery, and
to know that the representative of a great and famous family is
passing by.
“That’s a Howard, that’s a Eussell, that’s a Dorset, that’s de
Colique, that’s Mount Ague,” old Lord Mammon used to say as the
carriages whirled by. He knew none of them personally, I believe,
except de Colique and Mount Ague, but then it was so agreeable to be
able to know their liveries.
Now why shouldn’t we have the same arrangement? Why not have the
Smith colors, and the Brown colors, and the Black colors, and the
Potiphar colors, etc., so that the people might say, “Ah! there goes
the Potiphar arms.”
There is one difficulty, Mr. P. says, and that is, that he found five
hundred and sixty-seven Smiths in the Directory, which might lead to
some confusion. But that was absurd, as I told him, because everybody
would know which of the Smiths was able to keep a carriage, so that
the livery would be recognized directly the moment that any of the
family were seen in a carriage. Upon which he said, in his provoking
way, “Why have any livery at all, then?” and he persisted in saying
that no Smith was ever _the_ Smith for three generations, and
that he knew at least twenty, each of whom was able to set up his
carriage and stand by his colors.
“But then a livery is so elegant and aristocratic,” said I, “and it
shows that a servant is a servant.”
That last was a strong argument, and I thought Mr. P. would have
nothing to say against it; but he rattled on for some time, asking me
what right I had to be aristocratic, or, in fact, anybody else;--went
over his eternal old talk about aping foreign habits, as if we hadn’t
a right to adopt the good usages of all nations, and finally said that
the use of liveries among us was not only a “pure peacock absurdity,”
as he called it, but that no genuine American would ever ask another
to assume a menial badge.
“Why!” said I, “is not an American servant a servant still?”
“Most undoubtedly,” he said; “and when a man is a servant, let him
serve faithfully; and in this country especially, where to-morrow he
may be served, and not the servant, let him not be ashamed of
serving. But, Mrs. Potiphar, I beg you to observe that a servant’s
livery is not, like a general’s uniform the badge of honorable
service, but of menial service. Of course, a servant may be as
honorable as a general, and his work quite as necessary and well
done. But, for all that, it is not so respected nor coveted a
situation, I believe; and, in social estimation, a man suffers by
wearing a livery, as he never would if he wore none. And while in
countries in which a man is proud of being a servant (as every man may
well be of being a good one), and never looks to anything else, nor
desires any change, a livery may be very proper to the state of
society, and very agreeable to his own feelings, it is quite another
thing in a society constituted upon altogether different principles,
where the servant of to-day is the senator of to-morrow. Besides that,
which I suppose is too fine-spun for you, livery is a remnant of a
feudal state, of which we abolish every trace as fast as we can. That
which is represented by livery is not consonant with our principles.”
How the man runs on, when he gets going this way! I said, in answer to
all this flourish, that I considered a livery very much the thing;
that European families had liveries and American families might have
liveries;--that there was an end of it, and I meant to have
one. Besides if it is a matter of family, I should like to know who
has a better right? There was Mr. Potiphar’s grandfather, to be sure,
was only a skilful blacksmith and a good citizen, as Mr. P. says, who
brought up a family in the fear of the Lord.
How oddly he puts those things!
But _my_ ancestors, as you know, are a different matter. Starr
Mole, who interests himself in genealogies, and knows the family name
and crest of all the English nobility, has “climbed our family tree,”
as Staggers says, and finds that I am lineally descended from one of
those two brothers who came over in some of those old times, in some
of those old ships, and settled in some of those old places somewhere.
So you see, dear Caroline, if birth gives any one a right to coats of
arms and liveries, and all those things, I feel myself sufficiently
entitled to have them.
But I don’t care anything about that. The Gnus, and Croesuses, and
Silkes, and the Settum Downes, have their coats of arms, and crests,
and liveries, and I am not going to be behind, I tell you. Mr. P.
ought to remember that a great many of these families were famous
before they came to this country; and there is a kind of interest in
having on your ring, for instance, the same crest that your ancestor
two or three centuries ago had upon her ring. One day I was quite
wrought up about the matter, and I said as much to him.
“Certainly,” said he, “certainly; you are quite right. If I had Sir
Philip Sidney to my ancestor, I should wear his crest upon my ring,
and glory in my relationship, and I hope I should be a better man for
it. I wouldn’t put his arms upon my carriage, however, because that
would mean nothing but ostentation. It would be merely a flourish of
trumpets to say that I was his descendant, and nobody would know that,
either, if my name chanced to be Boggs. In my library I might hang a
copy of the family escutcheon as a matter of interest and curiosity to
myself, for I’m sure I shouldn’t understand it. Do you suppose
Mrs. Gnu knows what _gules argent_ are? A man may be as proud of
his family as he chooses, and, if he has noble ancestors, with good
reason. But there is no sense in parading that pride. It is an
affectation, the more foolish that it achieves nothing--no more credit
at Stewart’s--no more real respect in society. Besides, Polly, who
were Mrs. Gnu’s ancestors, or Mrs. Croesus’s, or Mrs. Settum Downe’s?
Good, quiet, honest, and humble people, who did their work, and rest
from their labors. Centuries ago, in England, some drops of blood
from ‘noble’ veins may have mingled with the blood of the forefathers;
or even, the founder of the family name may be historically
famous. What then? Is Mrs. Gnu’s family ostentation less absurd? Do
you understand the meaning of her crest, and coats of arms, and
liveries? Do you suppose she does herself? But in forty-nine cases out
of fifty, there is nothing but a similarity of name upon which to
found all this flourish of aristocracy.”
My dear old Pot is getting rather prosy, Carrie. So when he had
finished that long speech, during which I was looking at the lovely
fashion plates in Harper, I said:
“What colors do you think I’d better have?”
He looked at me with that singular expression, and went out suddenly,
as if he were afraid he might say something.
He had scarcely gone before I heard:
“My dear Mrs. Potiphar, the sight of you is refreshing as Hermon’s
dew.”
I colored a little; Mr. Cheese says such things so softly. But I said
good morning, and then asked him about liveries, etc.
He raised his hand to his cravat, (it was the most snowy lawn, Carrie,
and tied in a splendid bow.)
“Is not this a livery, dear Mrs. Potiphar?”
And then he went off into one of those pretty talks, in what
Mr. P. calls the “language of artificial flowers,” and wound up by
quoting Scripture,--“Servants, obey your masters.”
That was enough for me. So I told Mr. Cheese that as he had already
assisted me in colors once, I should be most glad to have him do so
again. What a time we had, to be sure, talking of colors, and cloths,
and gaiters, and buttons, and knee-breeches, and waistcoats, and
plush, and coats, and lace, and hatbands, and gloves, and cravats, and
cords, and tassels, and hats. Oh! it was delightful. You can’t fancy
how heartily the Rev. Cream entered into the matter. He was quite
enthusiastic, and at last he said, with so much expression, “Dear
Mrs. Potiphar, why not have a _chasseur?_”