Who are the “quality,”--said the Model, etc., in a community like ours?
I confess I find this question a little difficult to answer,--I said.
--Nothing is better known than the distinction of social ranks which
exists in every community, and nothing is harder to define. The great
gentlemen and ladies of a place are its real lords and masters and
mistresses; they are the quality, whether in a monarchy or a republic;
mayors and governors and generals and senators and ex-presidents are
nothing to them. How well we know this, and how seldom it finds a
distinct expression! Now I tell you truly, I believe in man as man, and
I disbelieve in all distinctions except such as follow the natural lines
of cleavage in a society which has crystallized according to its own
true laws. But the essence of equality is to be able to say the truth;
and there is nothing more curious than these truths relating to the
stratification of society.
Of all the facts in this world that do not take hold of immortality,
there is not one so intensely real, permanent, and engrossing as this of
social position,--as you see by the circumstances that the core of all
the great social orders the world has seen has been, and is still, for
the most part, a privileged class of gentlemen and ladies arranged in a
regular scale of precedence among themselves, but superior as a body to
all else.
Nothing but an ideal Christian equality, which we have been getting
farther away from since the days of the Primitive Church, can
prevent this subdivision of society into classes from taking place
everywhere,--in the great centres of our republic as much as in
old European monarchies. Only there position is more absolutely
hereditary,--here it is more completely elective.
--Where is the election held? and what are the qualifications? and who
are the electors?--said the Model.
Nobody ever sees when the vote is taken; there never is a formal vote.
The women settle it mostly; and they know wonderfully well what is
presentable, and what can't stand the blaze of the chandeliers and the
critical eye and ear of people trained to know a staring shade in a
ribbon, a false light in a jewel, an ill-bred tone, an angular movement,
everything that betrays a coarse fibre and cheap training. As a general
thing, you do not get elegance short of two or three removes from the
soil, out of which our best blood doubtless comes,--quite as good, no
doubt, as if it came from those old prize-fighters with iron pots on
their heads, to whom some great people are so fond of tracing their
descent through a line of small artisans and petty shopkeepers whose
veins have held “base” fluid enough to fill the Cloaca Maxima!
Does not money go everywhere?--said the Model.
Almost. And with good reason. For though there are numerous exceptions,
rich people are, as I said, commonly altogether the most agreeable
companions. The influence of a fine house, graceful furniture, good
libraries, well-ordered tables, trim servants, and, above all, a
position so secure that one becomes unconscious of it, gives a harmony
and refinement to the character and manners which we feel, if we cannot
explain their charm. Yet we can get at the reason of it by thinking a
little.
All these appliances are to shield the sensibility from disagreeable
contacts, and to soothe it by varied natural and artificial influences.
In this way the mind, the taste, the feelings, grow delicate, just as
the hands grow white and soft when saved from toil and incased in soft
gloves. The whole nature becomes subdued into suavity. I confess I like
the quality ladies better than the common kind even of literary ones.
They have n't read the last book, perhaps, but they attend better to you
when you are talking to them. If they are never learned, they make up
for it in tact and elegance. Besides, I think, on the whole, there is
less self-assertion in diamonds than in dogmas. I don't know where
you will find a sweeter portrait of humility than in Esther, the poor
play-girl of King Ahasuerus; yet Esther put on her royal apparel when
she went before her lord. I have no doubt she was a more gracious and
agreeable person than Deborah, who judged the people and wrote the story
of Sisera. The wisest woman you talk with is ignorant of something that
you know, but an elegant woman never forgets her elegance.
Dowdyism is clearly an expression of imperfect vitality. The highest
fashion is intensely alive,--not alive necessarily to the truest
and best things, but with its blood tingling, as it were, in all its
extremities and to the farthest point of its surface, so that the
feather in its bonnet is as fresh as the crest of a fighting-cock,
and the rosette on its slipper as clean-cut and pimpant (pronounce it
English fashion,--it is a good word) as a dahlia. As a general rule,
that society where flattery is acted is much more agreeable than that
where it is spoken. Don't you see why? Attention and deference don't
require you to make fine speeches expressing your sense of unworthiness
(lies) and returning all the compliments paid you. This is one reason.
--A woman of sense ought to be above flattering any man,--said the
Model.
[My reflection. Oh! oh! no wonder you did n't get married. Served you
right.] My remark. Surely, Madam,--if you mean by flattery telling
people boldly to their faces that they are this or that, which they are
not. But a woman who does not carry about with her wherever she goes
a halo of good feeling and desire to make everybody contented,--an
atmosphere of grace, mercy, and peace, of at least six feet radius,
which wraps every human being upon whom she voluntarily bestows her
presence, and so flatters him with the comfortable thought that she
is rather glad he is alive than otherwise, isn't worth the trouble of
talking to, as a woman; she may do well enough to hold discussions with.
--I don't think the Model exactly liked this. She said,--a little
spitefully, I thought,--that a sensible man might stand a little praise,
but would of course soon get sick of it, if he were in the habit of
getting much.
Oh, yes,--I replied,--just as men get sick of tobacco. It is notorious
how apt they are to get tired of that vegetable.
--That 's so!--said the young fellow John,--I've got tired of my cigars
and burnt 'em all up.
I am heartily glad to hear it,--said the Model,--I wish they were all
disposed of in the same way.
So do I,--said the young fellow John.
Can't you get your friends to unite with you in committing those odious
instruments of debauchery to the flames in which you have consumed your
own?