Evening Parties at the Duchess d’Abrantes’.--Mode of
admission.--The Weather.--Suicides.--Madame le Norman the
Sibyl.--Parisian Réunions.--Manners of Frenchwomen.--American
Soirées.--Furniture.--Hints on Etiquette.--Manners in Parisian High
Life.--Conversation.--Dress.--Qualifications for an
Exquisite.--Smoking.--Rules for dinner.
PARIS, April 15th, 1836.
What shall I put in this letter? I have not thought of a thing, and here
is only a day between me and the mail, and not wit enough in my head to
“stop the eye of Helen’s needle.” I will tell you two words of the
Duchess d’Abrantes, an old acquaintance of yours, and her evening
parties to begin with; and leave the rest to chance.
Parties, here, are not very exclusive. The Romans used to allow an
invited guest to bring a friend along, as his “shadow;” so it is in
Paris, only that you are allowed sometimes two or three shadows,
according to your intimacy or favour. It is usual, if you know a friend
going to a party, to sue, through his interest, for the privilege of a
ticket. It is usual to say, Mr. S.--if you wish to go to M. Thiers’
to-morrow night I have a ticket for you. In this way without knowing any
thing of the hostess, you are admitted to her saloon.
M. Le Baron de B----, whose acquaintance I owe altogether to my own
merits, unlocks the doors of this upper story of the world to me as
often as I please to accept his politeness, which I do sparingly. The
Duchess is the centre of a literary circle which meets regularly at her
house, once a week, for conversation. They do not eat themselves into a
reputation for polite learning here, as with us. The old lady has come
down from the anti-revolutionary times, and is, no doubt, a good sample
of the ancient French.
And how do these upper sort of folks conduct a _soirée_? Suppose
yourself a Duchess, and I will tell you.--Your servants in livery will
introduce your guests from the ante-chamber, calling out their names;
and they, on entering, will make you bows and grimaces by the dozen.
You also must go through your exercise. If a Duke, stand up straight, if
a Marquis half way up, if a Count a little way up, if a Baron, just bend
a little the hinges of your knees; and as for a mere gentleman, why any
common week-day inclination of the head will suffice.
Your servants too will be drilled.--_Monsieur le Prince de
Talleyrand!_--This must be pronounced with a loud and distinct voice,
banging open both the folding doors; and the buzz for a while must cease
through the saloon. (_vive sensation!_)--And the note of dignity must be
observed down through the subordinate visitors; till you hear in a soft
soprano, on G flat, just audible, _Monsieur Gentigolard!_ Then you will
see squeezing in by the door a little ajar, an individual with his cloak
by the tip end, and his knees encouraging each other--blinking something
like an owl introduced to the day-light. (_Léger mouvement à gauche._)
It was my luck to be born in a little nook of the backwoods, by the side
of a hoar hill of the Tuscarora, where the eagle builds its eyrie, and
the wild cat rears its kittens; it was not my choice, but my mother, who
had the whole arrangement of the matter, would have it so; and I had
never seen a Duchess. In coming up the stairs I had to work myself up
into a fit of aristocracy. “Mr. John,” said I, “you are a good looking
man, and fashionably dressed; your father was a soldier in the
Revolution--a major at St. Clair’s defeat; besides, you are yourself of
rather a noble descent, your wife’s grandmother was the daughter of
James Blakely, admiral ----.” With these encouragements I stepped from
the Broad Mountain into the saloon of the Duchess.
However, I was not greatly diverted _chèz madame la Duchesse_. I did not
feel any of my faculties much tickled except curiosity, and the flutter
of novelty is soon over; one soon gets used to be surprised. I had a
kind of hum-drum talk with an old general, who fought me the Revolution
over again, beginning with the Bastille. I might have been numbered
among its victims, but I fortunately thought of a _bon-mot_ of
Aristotle: I wonder any one has ears to hear you, who has legs to run
away from you--so I ran home to bed and dreamt of the battle of
Waterloo.
The French in high life have become a more grave and thinking people
than formerly, but I believe they cannot substitute any qualities
without injury, in the place of their natural levity and cheerfulness.
They cannot make themselves more amiable than they were in the reign of
Madame du Deffand and Madame Geoffrin. The proportion of ladies in the
saloon of the Duchess was quite scanty. This ought to be the case where
a woman is the centre of attraction, but it is not to my taste. If I had
run foul of a woman this evening, instead of this _vieille moustache_, I
should not have had a night-mare of Lord Wellington.
And now, what shall I do with these two sheets, since I have done with
the Duchess? I will talk about the weather. Hezekiah would have made no
kind of figure here with his dial. Mothers feed their children on the
fog with a spoon, as you do them on pap. What a litter of idiots these
vapours will breed! I just swim about in them in a kind of unconscious
imbecility of intellect. I intend to try some, one of these days, if I
can count four. As for the streets, one cannot put a foot upon them,
without being splashed half way up to the chin, with every kind of
immundicity.
No one ever thinks of going into “Jean Jaques Rousseau,” except in a fit
of despair, as I do when I expect your letters. Why, there was a man,
who went through the streets a few days ago, to put a letter in the
office, and he sunk three leagues in the mud; he has not been heard of
since. The French remedy for such weather is charcoal; to be _asphyxied_
is a natural death here.
A French girl being crossed in love the other day, and killing herself
the usual charcoal way, kept a journal of her sensations:--“At twelve,
difficulty of respiration and cold sweat; at twelve and a quarter,
violent pain in the chest, &c.”--Speaking of suicide, here are some
curious statistics:--for love, two and a half women to one man; for
reverses of fortune, three men to a woman; and five men to a woman for
baffled ambition. Of the men, the greater number from thirty-five to
forty-five; of women, from twenty-five to thirty-five; and twice as many
girls as boys before the age of fifteen--so say Talset’s Tables. Two
women to a man for love, implies that either men have the greater
attractions, or women the greater sensibility--which is it? I will
finish this paragraph with an adventure of a few days ago, which comes
in apropos enough, talking about charcoal.
There lives in the Rue de Tournon an old Sibyl called _Madame le
Norman_, whom all persons of sense or nonsense, who are curious about
the future, visit. She can spell the stars, and she reads the destinies,
as I do the _Journal des Debats_, and she acquired such a fame by
predicting the overthrow of Napoleon, that her house has been literally
beset ever since by petitioners. You have to bespeak her a week a-head.
A great comfort she is to the young gentlemen, whose fathers won’t die,
and she gives hopes to married ladies, who have old husbands.
Well, this prophetic old woman told Doctor C.--he had a wife and two
children in a foreign land pining after him, which proves she can see
behind as well as before; and that he would make acquaintance this week
with a noble lady--all true! Then she held my hand, and cast a peering
look upon it, and thrice shook her head. Alas! she saw in my face a
great many “drowning marks.”
So you see there is no chance in the world, unless your prayers shall
reverse the fates, of my ever getting home. I will tell you why I was
induced to go on this expedition to Delphos, for which I am sorry now,
for I think, like Julius Cæsar, that the mind of man should be ignorant
of its fate--it was to accompany your old acquaintance, ----, who has
fallen desperately in love with a Frenchwoman--_Mais, ma chère, vous
n’en avez pas l’idée!_
In fine, he is so in love, that he has serious thoughts of leaving off
chewing tobacco. It was to gratify him that I went, as he wanted to see
the end of this Frenchwoman. And now, with this fortune-teller, and the
suicides, the bad weather, and a Virginia doctor, I have got rid of a
whole page of blank paper, and, ’pon honour, I had no other motive for
calling them to your notice.
I will go back to my original text, and try to be sensible. I did wish
to decline to-day all that required reflection; I am also no great
professor in this kind of lore, but I find no other subject.--Evening
visits and gossipings have now taken place of the tipsy rompings of the
carnival. The midnight orgies are hushed, and the blazing tapers and
glittering gems are quenched until the return of a new year. Society has
put on a light, easy, and decorous garb, which it will wear for the rest
of the season; fashion rigorously forbidding any departure from its
chaste simplicity.
Conversation is now the main object of social intercourse, and every
thing is made to contribute to its enjoyment. It is admitted by those
who are best able to judge, that the Paris “_Réunions_” of this season,
form the very best school that is known of colloquial accomplishment;
and that they have a charm which other nations have not found the secret
of communicating to such pastimes. The largest share of this praise is,
of course, due to the women. Whether it be the language, better suited
than ours to conversation, or a constitutional gaiety, or vanity, which
is so much more amiable than pride, I know not; but a well bred
Frenchwoman is certainly the most agreeable creature of which the world
has any example.
I have often seen between me and the heaven of a fine woman’s face in
America, an impracticable distance--a bright star in the firmament,
which one must be content to worship, without the hope of ever reaching
its elevation. I have often been confounded so, in my tenderer years, by
the awfulness of American dignity, as to be afraid of my own voice; and
I have often felt in the presence of a lady--as if made by a carpenter.
Such a feeling, in the humanity and gentleness of French affability, is
unknown. You breathe freely, and retain the natural use of your
faculties, physical and intellectual. A Frenchwoman’s politeness levels
every distinction; the modest man is relieved of his diffidence, and the
humble raised to self-esteem, by her gracious civilities; and a lady of
elevated rank always strips herself, before an ordinary mortal, of her
rays, that he may approach her without being consumed. Nor does the
Frenchwoman lose anything of her dignity in this familiarity; she speaks
with kindness, and even affection to her servants, and yet is secure of
their respect and obedience.
I have come into the opinion that a lady has no occasion to bristle up
her crest in defence of her quality, or bring around it the protection
of reserve or haughtiness; and that her honour, unless the garrison is
corrupt, is safe in its natural defences.--It is not necessary to say
that under such good instruction the French gentlemen are also highly
polished and amiable. There is not one of them who does not set apart
some portion of the twenty-four hours for social amusement, and it is
the evening, when the mind is weary of business or study, that most
requires such relaxations.
In the evening, then, all the world is abroad; and it is reasonable to
suppose that wit must have attained its highest degree of pungency, and
style every ingredient of perfection, with such advantages. A
Frenchman’s ambition is to shine, and he comes armed at all points,
exactly _cap-a-pie_ for the occasion; above all, he takes care that the
stimulus of ardent liquors, and a heavy indigestible meal at the dinner
table, may not for the rest of the day blunt the edge of his vivacity
and enjoyment.
I have seen a few of these parties, enough to judge of the rest. Each
house is “at home,” at least once a-week, and the invitations are
general for the season, or occasional, and the regular guests have the
privilege of bringing a friend. I went last night to Civiale’s, the
eminent surgeon’s. One room was filled with miscellaneous company,
another with gentlemen only, at billiards, &c.
All was in a buzz of merriment, and without any show of ceremonious
restraint--all was “fortuitous elegance, and unstudied grace,” and this
is one of Johnson’s definitions of happiness. “Come to-morrow night,”
said C----, “and you will hear one of your countrywomen play; her talent
is not second to any lady’s of Paris.”--Who is she? from Boston.--I
have said nothing of the American “soirées” here, which are nearly as
at home, but more lively; I suppose from the contagious example, and
from the natural warmth of a friendly meeting in a foreign country. To a
stranger who arrives, they are at once a consolation and an enjoyment;
and it is to be hoped that a vicious emulation of sumptuousness, every
day increasing, may not disturb their frequency and cordiality.
The furniture of fashionable rooms here is more tasteful, and usually
more elegant than in our richest houses. The propriety of colours, and
the harmony of arrangement, and such things are with many persons the
study of a whole life. Richness is the praise of the English dames, and
chasteness and concinnity of the French.
In England where primogeniture preserves property indivisible, a house
is furnished from a remote antiquity, and there is encouragement to
taste and expense; but what motive is there to furnish in our country,
where Joseph has as much as Reuben, and where the next day after the
owner’s decease, the furniture encounters the auctioneer’s hammer; and
where fashion, too, turns a house wrong side out every six years.
Besides, what serves it to put costly years. Besides, what serves it to
put costly sums upon what is destined to be scraped and cut up by one’s
dozen of spoilt children, or to be carved into notches by one’s cousins
of Kentucky?
Now with what shall I fill this immense space which remains?--Oh, I will
give you all the precepts and aphorisms I can think of, of Paris good
breeding. They will be so useful to you in the “coal region.”
You may give your arm to a gentleman in public, but don’t give him both
your arms.
Keep on your gloves at church; take them off when you go to bed.
Don’t lick your plate, but imbibe the sauce with a little bread in the
left hand; holding a silver fork in your right.
When you dine out, you may blow your nose with the table-cloth, if they
don’t give you napkins; otherwise it would be thought improper. Don’t
use the tail of your frock; this gives offence to refined people,
generally speaking.
Don’t ask for the _ankle_ of a chicken; ladies say _leg_ now at table
without impropriety.
When full tilt in the street, bow, and don’t curtsey. Just do you try
how inconvenient it is to curtsey in the operation of fast walking;
besides, your frock gets in the mud.
If you cannot go to the “Trinity” to prayers, don’t forget to send your
card.
If you meet a lady on the Boulevards of Pottsville, or other public
promenade, don’t salute her, unless she first gives you some token of
recognition; if you meet her in Mann and William’s Mine two miles under
ground, you may. This invisibility gives a lady a chance of doing in
public what she chooses;--of carrying some tripe, or a leg of mutton
home to dinner. If you see a lady at her door or window in dishabille,
to salute her is inexcusable. If you espy her straying with a gentleman
amongst romantic shades of the wizard Mill Creek, or by the wild cliff
which overhangs the Tumbling Run, tapestried with honeysuckles, you must
whistle Yankee Doodle, so as to leave her the impression that she is
unobserved.
If you take a walk on Guinea Hill, and Black Bill uncovers, take off
your hat also; if his _curvature vertebrale_ be forty-five degrees,
yours must be forty-six; it won’t do to be outdone by Congo negroes.
Never write a catalogue of your linen for the washer-woman. He is a
filthy man, who knows the number of his shirts. And get them made at
Formin’s of the Rue Richelieu. He makes shirts _à ravir_; see
advertisement; “_Une chemise bien faite a été jusqu’ici un phenomène,
&c._” Whatever position you may give your body, his shirts remained
unruffled: many a man’s skin don’t fit half so perfectly.
If you meet a lady in public with a strange gentleman, return her salute
with your hat in your left hand, and walk on; or if she stop you, bow to
the gentleman also, and respect his rights. I walked through the
Tuileries the other day with a lady, and met--I am sorry it was an
American, who, intervening, _bummed_ me out of the lady’s acquaintance,
without noticing me. This is excessively ill-bred, and an insult to the
lady. I have not forgotten him, and I don’t know that I shall.
A Parisian lady possesses greater moral, as well as physical strength
than the lady of our cities. In Philadelphia, she cannot, for her little
soul, venture out into a public place without a life guard, no more than
Louis Philippe; and even then she is shy, and picks her steps, trembling
in her knees and heart.--“Pa, don’t you go that way, there’s a man!” Now
a Frenchwoman does not care to go out of the way of a man--any more than
the French army out of the way of the Bedouins. She just takes hold of
her _caniche_ in one hand, and walks out without caring for the
king.--Oh my! and what’s a _caniche_?--A little curly dog: she holds it
by a string, and it walks alongside of her, and with the protection only
of this little shaggy animal she feels herself impregnably fortified
against the whole sex.
When a gentleman escorts a lady to dinner he must not stick his elbows
into her ribs, and hang her to him, as his mantle to a post. Politeness
requires him to move exactly two feet and a half behind her, and a
little to the left. The gait is not a light matter in feminine graces;
it is, indeed, one of the attributes by which a woman is most admired.
The Pious Æneas did not recognise his mother as a goddess, until she had
turned tail to him in this manner; and when Juno said, “I _walk_ the
queen of Heaven,” do you think she had Jupiter by the arm? French
etiquette allows a lady every chance of striking out a beauty--even to
giving her the black men at the chess-board to show off her white and
tapering fingers.
Never look at your glove when you take it off to shake hands.--You only
want to show that Walker made it, or draw attention to the gem that
sparkles under it. The grand rule is in bringing out a grace, that the
intention be concealed--besides, your attention is due to the
individual to whom you have proffered your civilities.
If you come to Paris, you are to have but one child--babies are going
out of fashion.--And you must call it “Emile” (after Rousseau’s) and
then put it out to nurse.
I intreat you to remember there is no cooing over one’s little wife
here; it looks uxorious, which is a great scandal. It is not reputable
to either party, implying either that the husband is jealous, (and he
would rather be hanged,) or that the wife is a disagreeable thing, (and
she would rather be crucified,) and cannot get a beau.
I have seen ladies here often obliged--not having any thing at hand but
their husbands--to forego the pleasure of the finest fêtes and parties.
I have often had wives thrown in my face on such occasions. This custom
has an exhilarating effect upon social vivacity. There is nothing so
stupid in nature as one’s husband generally speaking. He has travelled
his wife’s mind over and over, and what can he have to say?--and _vice
versa_; in his neighbour’s he has a new and unexplored territory; and a
stranger suggests new attentions, and gives a new tone of feeling.
Besides a little mixture of evil seems necessary with every good. The
conjugal feelings are pure, honest and domestic, but like all the
benevolent affections, are rather unentertaining, it is known that
nothing gives wit so abundantly as a little malice.
The Parisian public does not suffer a fine woman to be monopolised; she
has social as well as domestic duties; and if the husband wants her
company, why go abroad with her? Somebody’s lordship once said that a
married woman was nothing but an appropriated girl. His lordship had not
travelled on the Continent. I know that in your town, where a married
couple grow together like Juno’s swans, or like those “two cherries” in
Shakspeare, such a custom must seem abominable.
Ladies kiss and don’t shake hands in Paris. Gentlemen kiss too, but only
on great occasions. I was kissed the other day by a man for the first
time. It was one of the most trying situations of my life. I felt like
that personage who was strangled by Hercules.--See the picture in the
mythology.
In Parisian high life, husbands and wives do not lodge conjointly. They
visit at New-Years; they send also to inquire about each other’s
health, and they meet out occasionally at parties. Even among the less
fashionable, they occupy separate chambers, which has this
inconvenience, that that great court of Chancery, the “Curtain
Lectures,” leaves many important cases untried.--Recollect, however,
that the husband meeting the wife accidentally in company, always treats
her with marked attentions; he stops at the end of every five words to
say “My dear,” and then he needs not speak to her till they meet again
at the next party.
Ladies here never gossip of one another’s demerits, which goes well nigh
to make them all honest. Also a lady having “an affair,” makes no parade
of it. Her lover is the very last person in the community who runs any
risk of being suspected; and her gallantries, if known, bring no
ridicule upon her husband, or tarnish in the least his reputation among
other ladies. In all nature I know of nothing so unsuspicious as the
French husbands. They have got, each one, nearly into the state of that
most unbelieving Greek, who doubted of every thing, and at last doubted
that he doubted. I will tell you a story which made me laugh this
morning.
A gentleman called at the Hotel and asked the porter; “Where does M. O.
V. T. live?” “Sir, there are three of that name in Paris.” “I allude to
the physician.” “They are all three physicians.” “I mean the physician
to the Royal family.” “Sir, they are all three.” “_Que diable! je veux
dire celui qui est cocu._” “_Ah, Monsieur, ils le sont tous les trois!_”
I tell you this only for its pleasantry, and not to hint the frequency
of such cases. I have, indeed, heard of one French husband, who was
jealous a little while. He flew at his wife’s lover with a knife, and
perhaps would have killed him, but she rushed between, and seizing his
arm, exclaimed: “_Arrête, malheureux, tu vas tuer le père de tes
enfans!_” and the knife fell from his paternal hands.
In conversation there is a language of prudery, and a language of
grossness.--These are the extremes, and propriety is somewhere about the
middle. Human nature, especially in large cities, does not bear
exquisite refinement. To refine, is to be indelicate; to hide, is to
discover. In America, we get, in some places, into the very wantonness
of delicacy, and decency herself becomes absolutely indecent. There are
two sorts of persons affected in this way; the modest woman just
stepping into the world, and the woman, who has been in it too much.
The latter “adds to the bloom of her cheek in exact proportion to the
diminution of her modesty.”
You have acquitted me fully of this charge of prudery in several of your
letters--much obliged. I wish I could be as easily absolved from the
opposite offence. All I can say in mitigation, is, that living a whole
year in Paris, and describing Parisian manners makes it very difficult
not to incur such a blame from you Pottsvillians. I may observe,
however, that freedoms are often permitted in one person, which may be
very blameable in others, depending entirely upon the comparative
innocency of their lives. Is Lafontaine ever taxed with indecency? Yet
in words he is a libertine without a rival;--and your baby, too, may
kick up its heels and do a good many things that would be very
unbecoming in its mother.
When you come to Paris you may talk of the eloquent preacher and the
music at St. Roch with raptures; but recollect you cannot do a more
silly thing than to make any show of religion. Though you may know your
Bible by heart, it will be well sometimes to ask, who Samuel was, or
David, or Moses, by way of recommending your good breeding.
If a coach stops at your door and brings you an acquaintance up the
stairs, you must say in a fret; “Here is that sickening thing again; now
I shall be teazed with her insipid talk all the morning. Why did they
let her in?”--“My dear Caroline I am so rejoiced to see you!” and then
you must jump about her neck.--“I was so dull, and just wanted your
sweet countenance and wit to enliven me.”--This is only a little
fashionable air, and does not mean any thing. The French profess more
violent affection before your face and employ more saucy ridicule behind
your back, than any other people; but the mass of kindness and
benevolence is about as great here as in other countries.--Complimentary
phrases are in no country to be taken literally. In Paris, if a man
swears he loves you, and will share his last crumb with you, he means of
course that you are to pay for it.
In taking leave of a lady, see her to your chamber door, and then hold
the door a little ajar, and wait until she has turned round and given
you the valedictory smile; then it is an affair finished. You are not to
follow to the street. You rub your lamp, that is, you ring a bell, and
a genius appears to conduct her. This leaves her at liberty with respect
to her equipage.
Nothing is so ill-bred as officious assiduities. Good breeding never
makes a fuss; it takes good care of a lady when her safety and real
comfort are concerned, with kindness, but not officiousness. Anticipate
all her wants, gratify all her whims, and overload her with superfluous
civilities, and you make her ungrateful, selfish, disagreeable. She will
regard your neglects as offences, and your kindnesses as dues that
enjoin no acknowledgment. You know what unhappy, disagreeable things
spoiled children are, and in their infantine grace and innocence how
amiable; their mammas may be spoiled in the same way, and when spoiled
are equally detestable. _Nota bene_: the papas may be spoiled too.
When you pay a visit, go away rather too soon than too late; leave
people always a little hungry of your company; unless you are of the
class of ladies, who “make hungry where most they satisfy.”
I advise you in your dress not to follow too implicitly the fashions of
Europe, and especially not to exaggerate, which is so common with
imitators. In bowing with the reverence to French fashions, which is
becoming in all womankind, have a decent respect to the human shapes and
appearances. Why, I have seen bustles or bishops, or what do you call
them, put up even in Chestnut-street by some of you, who, under the Rump
Parliament, would have been taken up for a libel.
If you are well dressed, no one meeting you will ask who made your
frock. One stares at the woman, and the frock is unseen. Do you believe
that any one asks Madame la Hon who made her chapeau; or the pretty
Countess de Vaudrueil, or the Duchess de Guiche, who plaited those
diamonds, more beautiful than the starry firmament, upon their turbans;
or the Duchess de Plaisance who made her shoe? No, no, the heart is full
of the little foot, and there is no room there for the shoemakers and
mantua-makers.
Don’t do things always the same way. If, for example, you hand a
gentleman anything (a bit of anthracite of the “Peacock Vein,” or a
joint of the railroad) do it with a graceful simplicity. I know an
elegant of your village, polished, to be sure, only with coal-dust, who
always brings his hand inconveniently to his heart as the
starting-place, and then sets off in a beautiful hyperbola, and always
with a velocity geometrically progressive. Do you be various; look
sometimes beautiful; look sometimes well, and fore Haven’s sake, if you
can, look sometimes ugly. She who wears a pretty cap every day, because
it is a pretty cap, is “the cap of all the fools.”
In Paris scandal is reduced to a minimum, for two reasons; first, from
the variety of events;--a large city swallows at a meal, what would feed
your towns for a whole month: and secondly, because what we call
breaking three or four of the commandments is here no sin. As for
elopements there are none; no occasion to run away.
News and coffee are taken usually together, and both must be hot. It is
low breeding to talk of anything which happened three days ago; the news
of the last week is the last year’s almanack. A Parisian gentleman never
speaks but of great events, and those which are just born; nor does he
rashly speak of Racine or Corneille, or such like antiquated authors; it
smacks of the Provinces.
To be an exquisite, the qualifications are to talk of the opera and the
races, and play at whist, dine at the _Cercle des Etrangers_, make a
leg, walk in a quadrille, and _avoir la plus jolie maitresse de Paris_.
It also recommends one greatly to have a pale face, and emaciated
shanks; implying a long course of high living; besides it gives a modish
languor to one’s air; it is exceedingly genteel. It is understood of
course, that one must be a useful man about a woman, and have one’s
pocket stuffed with her little conveniences. If she wants a pin, his
pincushion is at her service; or a needle, he must have all the numbers
from six to a dozen.
To be a gentleman of the _bon ton_, it is necessary not to be suspected
of any useful employment, or of regulating life by any rule of order or
economy; above all, not to be without some intrigue. Three or four
persons should always be jealous of one at the same time.
With a moderate pair of whiskers and mustachios, with a little tuft on
the inferior lip, and all trimmed like the garden of Versailles, he is a
classic; but if you see a grisly monster, with the beard of a Scotch
boar, and his hair flowing in all its St. Simonian shagginess about his
shoulders, and with the sallow complexion of a quateroon, seated by the
side of a smooth and elegant female, of an afternoon in the Tuileries,
he is of the romantic school--I wonder you women don’t set your faces
against these beards!
Gentlemen smoke now in Europe every where, but chew and spit nowhere. I
have observed that the French Exchange, where several thousand persons
daily congregate upon a white marble floor, is always pure from the
contamination of spitting. The French are, however, often disagreeable,
by spitting in their handkerchiefs. The best model, they say, in such
matters, is an English gentleman. The ancient Persians were a still
better. An Englishman often gets into good, sometimes bad customs, from
a pure antigallic opposition, as Lord Burleigh turned out his toes,
because Sir Christopher Hatton turned his in.
The Frenchman is hyperbolical, and the Englishman not even emphatic; the
one makes loud expressions, the other none; the one spits in his pocket,
and the other refuses to spit at all. However, there is no need of
national antipathies to dissuade mankind from chewing tobacco, which is
certainly one of the most aggravated indecencies that human nature has
been guilty of. How it should exist where there are ladies, I do not
conceive, and, least of all, do I conceive how it should exist in
Philadelphia, the most gynocratic of all cities.
But I smell the dinner, and since I am in the way of aphorisms, I will
give you a few to eat as a dessert, and to fill the rest of this page.
In your cookery, avoid all high seasonings, and coarse flavours, they
are vulgar. Cayenne, curry, allspice, and walnut pickles, and all such
inflammatory dishes, are banished from the French kitchen entirely. If
even the butter has a little crumb of salt in it, it is obliged, like
the President’s Message, to make an apology for its sauciness. Every
thing is served, as far as possible, in its own juices.
Even the ladies have left off aromatics and Eau de Cologne only keeps
its place upon the toilet. High seasonings for meat are used only as
antiseptics. If you ask a company to dinner, either dine out yourself,
or conceal your authority, by mixing, as they do in Paris,
undistinguishably with your guests. The guest must feel at his ease.
And, take care to observe antipathies and affinities in the distribution
of the seats. How many sin against this rule. I have known a lawyer put
alongside of a judge!
The French used to place a gentleman by a lady, and both drank from the
same cup, and ate from the same plate; sometimes the gentleman would put
the bite into the lady’s mouth. I am sorry--sometimes I am glad--that
this turtledove way of eating has gone out of fashion.
The table in America presents you the entire meal at a single view--in
some houses including the dessert; and while the dishes are lugged fifty
yards from the kitchen, and await then the ladies, fixing themselves,
what do you think has happened? Why, the jellies are coddled, the
drawn-butter has gone into _blanc-mange_, the beef gravy to tallow, and
the chickens to goose-flesh--in a word, nothing is hot but the butter.
It may be laid down as a rule, that no man can dine who sees his dinner.
Pray you observe a succession and analogy of dishes. I entreat you at
least that the fish may be hot, and that it may not wait an hour for its
sauce. And take care that your waiters have a proper acquaintance with
human nature and its wants, and that they be penetrated with a sense of
their duties. They must understand congruities, and know the desires
and appetites of a guest from his countenance.
I have seen countries, where if one asks for mutton, he has to ask for
turnips also! I have seen servants in our country, who, all the while
you are in agony for a dish, are standing and gaping at the
ceiling--fellows whom Heliogabalus would have crucified immediately
after dinner. A French garçon told me he knew a man’s wants--if a
gentlemanly eater--by the back of his neck. “I was puzzled,” said he,
“the other day by an American--he wanted a glass of milk just after his
soup.”
To remove a plate too soon by officiousness, is a monstrous fault; and
to make a clatter among the dishes is excessively annoying. What a
hurly-burly at an American dinner!--At the Rocher Cancale you would
think the servants were bearing along the sacred things of Mother
Vesta--their feet are muffled, the dishes are of velvet. In barbarous
times, a monstrous baron used to bring the dinner into his hall, by
servants on horseback. A good housekeeper now, by placing his
dining-room and kitchen in contiguity, and all accessories at the side
of their principals, studies that their services may be almost
invisible.--A host of a delicate taste never introduces one, but as
they do a ghost at a play, where the occasion is indispensable--_nodus
nisi vindice dignus_. These four words of Latin just saved their
distance, and I have only room to add--good night.