An English writer gives the following clever sketch of a fashionable
young lady of New York, whom he offers as a type of the "Girl of the
Period:"
"Permit me to present you to Miss Flora Van Duysen Briggs. Forget
Shakspeare's _dictum_ about a name; there is a story attached to this
name which I shall tell you by and by. Miss Flora is a typical New York
girl of the period; between sixteen and seventeen years old; a little
under the medium height; hair a golden brown; eyes a violet blue; cheeks
and lips rosy; teeth whiter and brighter than pearls; hands and feet
extremely small and well-shaped; figure _petite_ but exquisitely
proportioned; _toilette_ in the latest _mode de Paris_; but observe,
above all, that marvellous bloom upon her face, which American girls
share with the butterfly, the rose, the peach and the grape, and in which
they are unequalled by any other women in the world.
"Miss Flora's biography is by no means singular. Her father is Ezra
Briggs, Esq., a provision merchant in the city. Twenty-five years ago,
Mr. Briggs came to New York from one the Eastern States, with a
common-school education, sharp sense, and no money. He borrowed a
newspaper, found an advertisement for a light porter, applied for and
obtained the situation, rose to be clerk, head-clerk, and small partner,
and fagged along very comfortably until the Civil War broke out, and made
his fortune. His firm secured a government contract, for which they paid
dearly, and for which they made the Government pay dearer. Their pork
was bought for a song, and sold for its weight in greenbacks. Their
profits averaged 300 per cent. They were more fatal to the soldiers than
the bullets of the enemy. One consignment of their provisions bred a
cholera at Fortress Monroe, and robbed the Union of 15,000 brave men.
Their enemies declared that the final defeat of the Southerners was owing
to the capture of 1000 barrels of Briggs's mess beef by General Lee. But
Briggs was rolling in wealth, and could afford to smile at such taunts.
"Flora's mother had been a Miss Van Duysen. She was a little, weak,
useless woman, very proud of her name, which seemed to connect her in
some way with the old Dutch aristocracy. In point of fact, Briggs
married her on this account; for, like most democrats, he is very fond of
anything aristocratic. Mrs. Briggs, _nee_ Van Duysen, has nothing Dutch
about her but her name. The Knickerbockers of New York were famous for
their thrift, their economy, their neatness, and, above all, their
housewifely virtues. Mrs. Briggs is thriftless, extravagant, dowdy in
her old age, although she had been a beauty in her youth, and knows as
little about keeping a house as she does about keeping a horse. During
the war, at a fair given for the benefit of the Sanitary Commission, in
Union Square, several Knickerbocker ladies organized a kitchen upon the
old Dutch model, and presided there in the costumes of their
grandmothers. Mrs. Briggs was placed upon the committee of management,
but declined to serve, on account of the unbecoming costume she was
invited to wear, and because she considered it unladylike to sit in a
kitchen. But Mrs. Briggs preserved her caste, and benefited the Sanitary
Commission much more than she would have done by her presence, by sending
a cheque for $500 instead.
"Do we linger too long upon these family matters? No; to appreciate Miss
Flora, you must understand her surroundings. She has never had a home.
Born in a boarding-house, when her parents were not rich, she lives at a
hotel now that her father is a millionaire. Mr. Briggs married the name
of Van Duysen, in order to get into society. Miss Van Duysen married
Briggs's money, in order to spend it. Miss Flora Van Duysen Briggs
combines her mother's name and her father's money; her Mother's early
beauty and her father's shrewdness; her mother's extravagance and her
father's weakness for the aristocracy. She has good taste, as her
_toilette_ shows; but she does not believe that anything can be tasteful
that is not expensive. Her aim is to run ahead of the fashions, instead
of following them; but she is clever enough to so adapt them to her face
and figure, that she always looks well-dressed, and yet always attracts
attention. Her little handsome head is full of native wit, and of
nothing else. Her education has been shamefully neglected. She has had
the best masters, who have taught her nothing. Like all other American
girls, she plays on the piano, but does not play the piano--you will
please notice this subtle but suggestive distinction. She has picked up
a smattering of French, partly because it is a fashionable
accomplishment, and partly because she intends to marry; but I will not
yet break your heart by announcing her matrimonial intentions. Compared
with an English or French girl of the same age, she has many and grave
deficiencies; but she atones for them by a wonderful tact and cleverness,
which blind you to all her faults and lend a new grace to all her
virtues.
"Truth to say, the admirers of Miss Flora, whose name is Legion, give her
the credit for all her own virtues, and blame her father and mother, and
the system, for all her faults. Born, as we have said, in a
boarding-house, left entirely in charge of the nurse-maid, educated at a
fashionable day-school, brought into society before fifteen, living in
the whirl, the bustle, the luxury, and the unhomeliness of a hotel, what
could you expect of Miss Flora but that she should be, at seventeen years
of age, a butterfly in her habits, a clever dunce as regards solid
knowledge, and a premature woman of the world in her tastes and manners?
The apartments which the Briggs family occupy at the Fifth Avenue Hotel
are magnificently decorated and furnished, but they do not constitute a
home. Several times Mr. Briggs has offered to purchase a house in a
fashionable thoroughfare; but his wife objects to the trouble of managing
unruly servants, and terrifies Mr. Briggs out of the notion by stories of
burglars admitted, and plate stolen, and families murdered in their beds,
through the connivance of the domestics. What more can any one desire
than the Briggs family obtain at the hotel for a fixed sum per week, and
a liberal margin for extras? The apartments are ample and comfortable;
the _cuisine_ and the wines are irreproachable; there is a small table
reserved for them, to which they can invite whom they choose; an immense
staff of servants obey their slightest wish; their carriages, kept at a
neighboring livery stable, can be sent for at any moment; they are as
secluded in their own rooms as if they lived in another street, so far as
the family in the next _suite_ is concerned; they are certain to meet
everybody, and can choose their own company; the spacious hotel parlors
are at their disposal whenever they wish to give an evening party,
reception, or _the dansant_. What more could they gain by setting up a
private house? Mr. Briggs, having never tried the experiment, does not
know. Mrs. Briggs, whose only reminiscence of a private residence is the
one in which her mother let lodgings, does not know. Miss Flora Van
Duysen Briggs, having never been used to any other way of life than the
present, neither knows nor cares, and 'does not want to be bothered.'
"The Briggs family spend their winters in town, their summers at Newport,
Saratoga, or some other watering-place, at which nobody cares anything
about the water. The frequenters of these rural or seaside retreats are
presumed to come for their health, but really come to show their dresses.
Thus Miss Flora's life varies very little all the year round; she rises
late, and is dressed for breakfast; after breakfast she practises upon
the piano, shops with her mamma, and returns to be dressed for luncheon;
after luncheon she usually takes a brief nap, or lies down to read a
novel, and is then dressed for the afternoon promenade, as you have just
seen her; after the promenade she is dressed for a drive with mamma in
the Central Park; after the drive she is dressed for dinner, or dines in
her out-of-door costume, preparatory to being dressed for the opera, the
theatre, a ball, or a party. Every Tuesday she receives calls; every
Thursday she calls upon her acquaintances. Whenever she has a spare
moment, it is bestowed upon her dressmaker. If she thinks, it is to
design new trimmings; if she dreams, it is of a heavenly _soiree
dansante_, with an eternal waltz to everlasting music, and a tireless
partner in paradisiacal Paris.
"As all the best and--in a double sense--the dearest things of Miss
Flora's life come from Paris, it is quite natural that she should look to
Paris for her future. The best of all authorities declares that 'where
the treasure is there will the heart be also.' Miss Flora's treasures
are in the Parisian _magasins_, and her heart is with them. Although
scores of young men kneel at her feet, press her hands, and deride the
stars in comparison with her eyes, she cares for none of her worshippers.
She smiles upon them, but the smile is no deeper than the lips; she
flirts with them, but stops at that sharp, invisible line which separates
a flirtation from a compromising earnestness; she is a coquette, but not
a jilt. If she encourages all, it is because she prefers none. Her
heart has never been touched, and she knows that none of her admirers in
her own country can hope to touch it. Her rivals scornfully assert that
she has no heart; but as she is, after all, a woman, this assertion must
be incorrect. She is in love with an ideal, but that ideal has a title.
So soon as Mr. Briggs can dispose of his business, Miss Flora is to be
taken to Paris. Within two years afterwards she will be led to the altar
by a French duke, marquis, or count, who will fall in love with her
father's bank-book, and then she will figure as an ornament of the French
Court, or the _salons_ of the Faubourg Saint-Germain. This is her
ambition, and she will certainly accomplish it. The blood of the Van
Duysens and the money of Briggs can accomplish anything when united in
Miss Flora. With this end in view, the little lady is as inaccessible to
ordinary admirers as a princess. She is a duchess by anticipation, and
feels the pride of station in advance. There is no danger that she will
falter in the race through any womanly weakness, nor through any lack of
knowledge of the wiles of men. With the beauty of Venus and the chastity
of Diana, she also possesses qualities derived directly from Mother Eve.
An English matron would blush to know, and a French _mere_ would be
astonished to learn, secrets which Miss Flora has at her pretty
finger-ends. She has acquired her knowledge innocently, and she will use
it judiciously. Nothing escapes her quick eyes and keen ears, and under
that demure forehead is a faculty which enables her to 'put this and that
together,' and arrive at conclusions which would amaze her less acute
foreign sisters. You may not envy her this faculty, but do not accuse
her of employing it improperly. She will never disgrace herself nor the
coronet which she already feels pressing lightly upon her head. As she
trips out of sight, it may give any man a heart-pang to think that there
is at least one lovely woman who is impenetrable to love; but then, if
she were like those dear, soft, fond, impressible, confiding beauties of
a former age, she would not be herself--a Girl of the Period."