After I had sent away my letter to you, and made an excursion into the
country with some ladies, I drove to a party at the Duke of Clarence's,
where there was, this time, such a genuine English squeeze, that I and
several others could by no means get in; and went away, after waiting
half an hour, 're infectâ,' to console ourselves at another ball. The
mass in the first room was so jammed together that several men put on
their hats, that they might have their arms more at liberty for active
service. Ladies, covered with jewels were regularly 'milled,' and fell,
or rather stood, fainting: cries, groans, curses, and sighs, were the
only sounds to be heard. Some only laughed; and, inhuman as it was, I
must accuse myself of having been among these latter; for really it was
too droll to hear this called _society_. To say truth, I never saw any
thing equal to it before.
Early the next morning I rode to Cobham Hall, to spend a few days there
on occasion of Lord D----'s birthday, which was celebrated to-day in a
rural and unpretending manner. Excepting myself, there was no one but
the family, which was increased by the presence of the elder son and
his beautiful and charming wife, who usually reside in Ireland. All was
ordered for domestic enjoyment. We dined early, in order that we might
be present at a supper in the open air, which Lord D---- gave to all his
labourers, about a hundred in number. It was managed with the greatest
decorum. We sat next to the iron fence in the pleasure-ground, and the
tables for the people were placed on the new-mown grass. First, about
fifty young girls, from the Lancasterian school which Lady D---- has
established in the park, were regaled with tea and cakes. They were all
dressed alike, and very prettily too; they were children of from six to
fourteen. After them came the labourers, and seated themselves at a long
table plentifully furnished with enormous dishes of roast beef,
vegetables, and pudding. Each brought his own knife and fork and earthen
pot. The servants of the house set on the dinner, did the honours, and
poured out the beer from great watering-pots. The village musicians
played all the while, and were really better than ours; they were also
better dressed. On the other hand the labourers did not look so well or
so neat as our Wends in their Sunday clothes. No one was invited except
those who constantly worked for Lord D----. The health of every member
of the family was drunk with nine times nine; on which our old coachman
Child, (now in Lord D----'s service,) who is a kind of English
improvisatore, got upon the middle of the table, and delivered a most
comical speech in verse, in which I was introduced, and truly with this
wish,--
To have always plenty of gold,
And never to become old;
the double impossibility of which sounded rather ironical.
During all this time, and till it was dark, the little girls danced and
skipped about incessantly, with great gravity, on the grass, without any
sort of plan or connectedness, like puppets,--whether the music played
or not. Our party in the pleasure ground was at length attacked by the
dancing mania; and I myself constrained to break my vow, for I could not
possibly refuse to dance with such a partner as lady D----.
_July 4th._
I have not been so happy and amused for a long time as here. In the
morning I make excursions in the beautiful country, or drive in lady
D----'s little one horse phæton about the fields and park, without road
or path; and in the evening I, like the rest, take only just so much
part in the conversation as I like. Yesterday after dinner we all sat
(nine persons) at least a couple of hours together in the library,
reading,--each, of course I mean, in his own book,--without one single
word being spoken. At which peripatetic silence we at last, all by
common consent, laughed. We thought of the Englishman at Paris, who
maintained 'que parler c'étoit gâter la conversation.' After visiting
the Lancasterian school I mentioned,--where one person teaches sixty
girls, some of whom come from the remotest parts of Lord D----'s
estate, many miles, daily--I rode to Rochester to see the fine ruin of
the old castle. What has not been destroyed by violence stands like a
rock, from the time of William the Conqueror. The remains of the
eating-hall, with its colossal pillars united by richly ornamented Saxon
arches, are singularly fine. The stone ornaments were all carved in
Normandy, and sent hither by water. I mounted the highest point of the
ruin, whence I had a noble view of the union of the Thames and the
Medway, the towns of Rochester and Chatham, with the dockyards of the
latter, and a richly cultivated country.
At dinner our company received an addition,--Mr and Mrs P----, Mr M----,
and a nephew of Lord D----'s. Mrs P---- told a good anecdote of Kemble
the actor. On a professional tour in the provinces, he acted in a piece
in which a camel is introduced. He told the 'décorateur' that, as he had
just seen, there was a camel actually in the town, and that he had
better therefore go and look at it, that he might make his artificial
one as like it as possible. The man seemed extremely annoyed, and
replied, he was sorry gentlemen in London thought people in the country
were so ignorant; for his part, he flattered himself that, without going
to look at any thing, he should produce a more natural camel this
evening than any that was walking about the streets.
The following day we rode out, and this time in company with the ladies,
after which we went on the water in Lord D----'s elegant yacht. I was
to drive the party down to the Thames, four-in-hand, in which I have had
so little practice of late years, that at a crossway the leaders, in
spite of my efforts, ran their heads against a stage-coach driving
across us:--this occasioned a scream in both the carriages, which
greatly incensed old Child, who looks upon me as his pupil.
Thus, like the great Corsican, in one day I lost all my renown in the
high art of guiding the reins--from the throne, ycleped ruling,--from
the box, driving. I was therefore obliged to abdicate the latter, since
the ladies maintained that my possession of this exalted seat was
attended with too much danger to them. This mortified me so sorely, that
when we got on board the yacht I climbed up the shrouds, and seated
myself at the mast-head, where, fanned by a mild zephyr, I admired at my
ease the ever-changing prospect, and philosophized on my downfall.
_July 5th._
After I had vigorously assisted in hewing out some new prospects in the
thicket, (at which we all lent a hand,) and planned a road through the
park which is to be so far honoured as to bear my name, I took a cordial
leave of this most estimable family, (who might serve as a pattern to
the nobility of any country,) and returned to London, provided with many
letters of introduction for Ireland.
_July 8th._
As before I depart I mean to send you all sorts of things, with my
horses, carriage and birds, (of the latter you will receive a complete
cargo of the rarest sorts), I have had enough to do to-day to complete
my purchases. In the course of this occupation I fell upon an exhibition
of machinery and manufactures, among which are many interesting things;
as, for instance, a machine which draws of itself, (if I may say so,)
all the objects visible within its horizon, in perspective: a
piano-forte which, besides serving the usual purpose, plays (extra) a
hundred pieces by itself, which you may accompany with extemporary
`fantasie' on the keys: a very compendious domestic telegraph, which
spares the servants half their labour, and us nearly all their
burdensome presence: a washing machine, which requires only one woman to
wash a great quantity of linen: a most elegant churn, with which you can
make butter on your breakfast table in two minutes; and other novelties
of the like kind.
From hence I drove to the greatest nursery garden in the neighbourhood
of London, which I had long wished to see. The multifold wants of such a
number of rich people raise private undertakings to a magnitude and
extent in England which they reach nowhere else. On such a scale I
found a collection of green-houses in this garden. In many were small
leaden tubes, carried along the edges of the glass roof,--three or four
on each side: the tubes are perforated with very small holes: by only
turning a cock, a stream of water is carried through them; and in one
moment the whole house is filled with a thick shower, just like natural
rain. This makes the labour of watering almost unnecessary, has a much
more powerful and uniform effect, and only requires some aid where the
leaves are too large and thick to allow the rain to penetrate.
Without going into the details of the innumerable sorts of pines, roses,
&c., I must only remark, that in the department of esculent vegetables,
there were four hundred and thirty-five sorts of salad, two hundred and
sixty-one of peas, and two hundred and forty of potatoes,--and all other
articles of garden commerce in the same proportion.
On my way back I met the Tyrolers, who had been making holiday, and
asked my old acquaintance (the girl) how she was pleased with her stay
here. She declared with enthusiasm that her Saint must have brought her
here; for that they had made 7000_l._ sterling in a few months, which
they had earned--hard money--only with singing their dozen songs.
Prince Esterhazy has made this _Gejodle_[88] the fashion here, and
fashion in England is every thing. Sontag and Pasta, with their
wonderful talents, have chiefly this to thank for their success--they
were the fashion; for Weber, who did not understand the art of making
himself fashionable, gained, as is well known, almost nothing;--the two
Bohrers, Kiesewetter, and other men of real genius, were not more
fortunate.
While I am talking of fashion, it seems a suitable occasion, before I
quit England, to enter a little more at large on the subject of the
structure and tone of English society, which is certainly rather more
striking to a stranger in this admired land, than fog, steam-engines, or
stage-coaches. It is not necessary to remark here, that in such general
descriptions only the most prominent and reigning peculiarities are
taken into consideration, and that, in the censure which is passed on
the whole, the hundred honourable exceptions which exhibit the
praiseworthy contrast in such full perfection, are left wholly out of
the account.
England is now--viewed, certainly, with relation to a totally different
universal spirit of the age--in a similar state to that of France thirty
years before the revolution. And it will fall out with her as with her
great rival, if she does not avert the storm by radical but continuous
reform. Nearly-allied fundamental evils are present here, as there. On
the one side, the undue preponderance, misused power, inflexible stony
arrogance, and heartless frivolity of the great; on the other,
selfishness and rapacity are grown into the national character of the
mass of the people. Religion no longer dwells in the heart and spirit,
but is become a dead form; notwithstanding the most unenlightened
_spirit_ of Catholicism,--with fewer ceremonies, indeed, but combined
with like intolerance, and a similar hierarchy; and which besides the
bigotry and the pride of Rome, has this over and above, that it
possesses an enormous share of the property of the country.[89]
Like causes have also given an analogous tone and direction to what is
pre-eminently called, Society. Experience will confirm this to every man
who has access to what is called high life in England; and it will be
highly interesting to him to observe how different a growth and aspect
the same plant has assumed in France and England, in consequence of the
original difference of the soil; for in France it grew rather out of
chivalry and poetry, combined with the dominant vanity of the nation,
with levity of character, and a real delight in social existence:--in
England, out of a brutal feudal tyranny, the commercial prosperity of
later years, an ill-humour and moroseness innate in the nation, and a
cold stony self-love.
People on the continent generally form to themselves a more or less
republican picture of English society. In the public life of the nation
this is certainly very observable,--as also in their domestic habits, in
which selfishness is strangely prevalent. Grown-up children and parents
soon become almost strangers; and what we call domestic life[90] is
therefore applicable only to husband, wife, and little children living
in immediate dependence on their father; as soon as they grow up, a
republican coldness and estrangement take place between them and their
parents. An English poet maintains, that the love of a grandfather to
his grandchildren arises from this--that in his grown-up sons he sees
only greedy and hostile heirs,--in his grandchildren, the future enemies
of his enemies. The very _thought_ could never have arisen but in an
English brain!
In the relations and tone of society, on the other hand, from the
highest step to the very lowest, not a trace of any element of
republicanism is to be found. Here, everything is in the highest degree
ultra-aristocratic--it is caste-like. The present so-called great world
would probably have taken a different form and character if a Court, in
the continental sense of the word, had given tone and direction in the
highest instance.
Such a one, however, does not here exist. The Kings of England live like
private men; most of the high officers about the Court are little more
than nominal, and are seldom assembled except on occasions of great
ceremony. Now, as somewhere in society a focus must be organized, from
which the highest light and the highest authority in all matters
connected with society must emanate, the rich aristocracy seemed here
called to assume this station.
It was, however, spite of all its wealth and puissance, not yet
qualified to maintain such a station unquestioned. The English nobility,
haughty as it is, can scarcely measure itself against the French in
antiquity and purity of blood (if any value is to be attached to such
things), and in no degree against the higher German nobility, which is
for the most part intact.[91] It dazzles only by the old historic names
so wisely retained, which appear through the whole of English history
like standing masks; though new families, often of very mean and even
discreditable extraction, (such as descendants of mistresses, and the
like), are continually concealed behind them. The English aristocracy
has indeed the most solid advantages over those of all other
countries--from its real wealth, and yet more from the share in the
legislative power allotted to it by the Constitution: _but as it is not
upon these grounds that it chooses to assert or to justify its
supremacy, but precisely upon its assumed noble blood and higher
extraction_, the pretension must, unquestionably, appear to the rest of
the world doubly ludicrous. The members of the aristocracy probably had
an instinctive feeling of this; and thus, by a tacit convention--not
nobility, not wealth, but an entirely new power was placed upon the
throne, as supreme and absolute sovereign--Fashion: a goddess who in
England alone, reigns in person, (if I may so express myself), with
despotic and inexorable sway,--though always represented to mortal eyes
by a few clever usurpers of either sex.
The spirit of _caste_, which, emanating from this source, descends
through all stages of society in greater or less force, has received
here a power, consistency and full development, wholly unexampled in any
other country. The having visited on an intimate footing in a lower
class is sufficient to ensure you an extremely cold reception in the
very next step of the ladder; and no Brahmin can shrink with more horror
from all contact with a Paria, than an 'Exclusive' from intercourse with
a 'Nobody.'--Every class of society, as well as every field, in England
is separated from every other by a hedge of thorns. Each has its own
manners and turns of expression,--its 'cant' language, as it is called,
and, above all, a supreme and absolute contempt for all below it. Of
course every reflecting person sees at a glance, that a society so
constituted must necessarily become eminently provincial
(_kleinstädtisch_, i. e. _small-townish_) in its several coteries; and
this strikingly distinguishes it from the large and cosmopolitan society
of Paris.
Now, although the aristocracy, as I have remarked, does not stand _as
such_ on the pinnacle of this strange edifice, it yet exercises great
influence over it. It is indeed difficult to become fashionable without
being of good descent; but it by no means follows, that a man is so in
virtue of being well born--still less of being rich. It sounds ludicrous
to say, (but yet it is true), that the present King for instance, is a
very fashionable man; that his father was not in the least degree so,
and that none of his brothers have any pretension to fashion;--which
unquestionably is highly to their honour:--for no man who has any
personal claims to distinction, would be frivolous enough long to have
either the power or the will to maintain himself in that category. On
the other hand, it would be a doubtful and critical matter to affirm
decidedly what are the qualities which secure the highest places in that
exalted sphere. You see alternately the most heterogeneous qualities
occupy a post in it; and political motives, in a country like this,
cannot be entirely without influence: yet I believe that caprice and
luck, and, above all, women, here, as in the rest of the world, do more
than anything else.
On the whole, fashionable Englishmen, however unable they may be to lay
aside their native heaviness and pedantry, certainly betray the most
intense desire to rival the dissolute frivolity and 'jactance' of the
old Court of France in their fullest extent; while in exactly the same
proportion the French now seek to exchange this character for old
English earnestness, and daily advance towards higher and more dignified
purposes and views of existence.
A London Exclusive of the present day is in truth nothing more than a
bad, flat, dull impression of a 'roué' of the Regency and a courtier of
Louis the Fifteenth: both have, in common, selfishness, levity,
boundless vanity, and an utter want of heart; both think they can set
themselves above everything by means of contempt, derision and
insolence; both creep in the dust before one idol alone--the Frenchman
of the last age, before his King--the Englishman of this, before any
acknowledged ruler in the empire of fashion. But what a contrast if we
look further! In France, the absence of all morality and honesty was at
least in some degree atoned for by the most refined courtesy; the
poverty of soul, by wit and agreeableness; the impertinence of
considering themselves as something better than other people, rendered
bearable by finished elegance and politeness of manners; and egotistical
vanity in some measure justified, or at least excused, by the brilliancy
of an imposing Court, a high-bred air and address, the perfect art of
polished intercourse, winning 'aisance,' and a conversation captivating
by its wit and lightness.--What of all this has the English 'dandy' to
offer?
His highest triumph is to appear with the most wooden manners, as little
polished as will suffice to avoid castigation; nay, to contrive even his
civilities so, that they are as near as may be to affronts:--this indeed
is the style of deportment which confers upon him the greatest
celebrity. Instead of a noble, high-bred ease,--to have the courage to
offend against every restraint of decorum: to invert the relation in
which our sex stands to women, so that they appear the attacking, and he
the passive or defensive party;--to treat his best friends, if they
cease to have the stamp and authority of fashion, as if he did not know
them,--"to cut them," as the technical phrase goes; to delight in the
ineffably 'fade' jargon, and the affectation of his 'set;' and always to
know what is 'the thing:'--these are pretty nearly the accomplishments
which form a young 'lion' of the world of fashion. If he has, moreover,
a remarkably pretty mistress, and if it has also happened to him to
induce some foolish woman to sacrifice herself on the altar of fashion,
and to desert husband and children for him, his reputation reaches its
highest 'nimbus.' If, added to this, he spends a great deal of money, if
he is young, and if his name is in the 'Peerage,' he can hardly fail to
play a transient part; at any rate he possesses in full measure all the
ingredients that go to make a Richelieu of our days. That his
conversation consists only of the most trivial local jests and scandal,
which he whispers into the ear of a woman in a large party, without
deigning to remark that there is anybody in the room but himself and the
happy object of his delicate attentions; that with men he can talk only
of gambling or of sporting; that, except a few fashionable phrases which
the shallowest head can the most easily retain, he is deplorably
ignorant; that his awkward 'tournure' goes not beyond the 'nonchalance'
of a plough-boy, who stretches himself at his length on the ale-house
settle; and that his grace is very like that of a bear which has been
taught to dance,--all this does not rob his crown of a single jewel.
Worse still is it, that, notwithstanding the high-bred rudeness of his
exterior, the moral condition of his inward man must, to be fashionable,
stand far lower. That cheating is prevalent in the various kinds of play
which are here the order of the day, and that when long successfully
practised it gives a sort of 'relief,' is notorious: but it is still
more striking, that no attempt is made to conceal that 'crasse'
selfishness which lies at the bottom of such transactions,--nay, that it
is openly avowed as the only rational principle of action, and
'good-nature' is laughed at and despised as the 'comble' of vulgarity.
This is the case in no other country: in all others, people are ashamed
of such modes of thinking, even if they are wretched enough to hold
them. "We are a selfish people," said a favourite leader of fashion, "I
confess; and I do believe that what in other countries is called 'amor
patriæ' is amongst us nothing but a huge conglomeration of love of
ourselves: _but I am glad of it; I like selfishness_; there's good
sense in it;"--and he added, not satirically, but quite in earnest,
"Good-nature is quite 'mauvais ton' in London; and really it is a bad
style to take up, and will never do."
It is true that if you choose to analyze and hunt down every feeling
with the greatest subtlety, you may discover a sort of selfishness at
the very bottom of everything; but in all other nations a noble shame
throws a veil over it; as there are instincts very natural and innocent,
which are yet concealed even by the most uncivilized.
Here, however, people are so little ashamed of the most 'crasse'
self-love, that an Englishman of rank once instructed me that a good
'fox-hunter' must let nothing stop him, or distract his attention when
following the fox; and if his own father should be thrown in leaping a
ditch, and lie there, should, he said, 'if he couldn't help it,' leap
his horse over him, and trouble himself no more about him till the end
of the chase.[92]
With all this, our pattern 'dandy' has not the least independence, even
in his bad qualities: he is the trembling slave of fashion, even in the
extremest trifles; and the obsequious, servile satellite of the
fortunate individuals who are higher than himself. Were virtue and
modesty suddenly to become the fashion, nobody would be more
exemplary,--difficult as would be the task to accomplish.
Destitute of all originality, and without a thought he can properly call
his own, he may be compared to a clay figure, which, for a while,
deceives one with all the properties of a human being, but returns into
its native mud as soon as you discover that it has not a soul.
Whoever reads the best of the recent English novels--those by the author
of Pelham--may be able to abstract from them a tolerably just idea of
English fashionable society; provided (N.B.) he does not forget to
deduct qualities which national self-love has claimed, though quite
erroneously:--namely, grace for its 'roués,'--seductive manners and
amusing conversation for its 'dandies.' I mixed for a while with those
who dwell on the very pinnacle of this fool's world of fashion; with
those who inhabit its middle regions, and with those who have pitched
their tents at its foot, whence they turn longing, lingering looks at
the unattainable summit; but rarely did I ever find a vestige of that
attractive art of social life, that perfect equipoise of all the social
talents, which diffuses a feeling of complacency over all within its
sphere;--as far removed from stiffness and prudery as from rudeness and
license, which speaks with equal charm to the heart and the head, and
continually excites, while it never wearies; an art of which the French
so long remained the sole masters and models.
Instead of this, I saw in the fashionable world only too frequently, and
with few exceptions, a profound vulgarity of thought; an immorality
little veiled or adorned; the most undisguised arrogance; and the
coarsest neglect of all kindly feelings and attentions haughtily
assumed, for the sake of shining in a false and despicable 'refinement,'
even more inane and intolerable to a healthy mind, than the awkward and
ludicrous stiffness of the most declared Nobodies. It has been said that
vice and poverty are the most revolting combination:--since I have been
in England, vice and boorish rudeness seem to me to form a still more
disgusting union. * * *
* * * * *
Passing over some of the most remarkable English rulers of fashion, I
must mention one foreign potentate, who has placed herself on the same
throne with the highest.
The haughty and masculine spirit of this lady, which, when she chooses,
she knows how to conceal under the most engaging affability, combined
with all the diplomatic craftiness of her station, have enabled her to
set her foot on the neck of English supremacy; but she has not been able
to give to the court that surrounds her and bows blindly to all her
decrees, either her wit and tact, or her high-born air, or that
repulsive politeness _to all_, which is the 'ne plus ultra' of the
manner which it is the main object of an Exclusive's life to attain. The
distance in these respects between her and her associates in sovereignty
is almost burlesque; yet they rule side by side in Olympus. But even the
immortal gods have to encounter opposition; and thus we find a gigantic
antagonist in the monarch of the nether world. * * *
* * * * *
At his house are to be seen many of the 'Dii minores gentium,' such as
actresses turned into duchesses and countesses, &c. who are not admitted
into the circle 'par excellence.' * * *
* * * * *
A high degree of influence is also possessed by a foreign ambassador;
and without doubt he would possess the very highest, if the best tone,
kind-hearted amiability, high rank, the finest taste, and
(notwithstanding an assumed English 'tournure') a perfect absence of
that heaviness and pedantry, of which English fashionables can never
divest themselves, constituted the sole claims to pre-eminence. But it
is precisely because he is too far removed from the English, both by
that native amiability which continually gains an involuntary conquest
over his 'Anglo manie,' and by his German cordiality, that he excites
their envy rather than their admiration; and though 'recherche' by most,
because he is the fashion, remains a strange meteor in their system,
whom they attack where they can, and whom, at all events, they cannot
take to their hearts as they do their own Jupiter Ammon, nor acknowledge
in him 'autorité sans replique' with that blind submission they pay to
their Autocratess. Perhaps the wife of the ambassador might easily have
played the part of that lady, whom she excels in beauty as well as in
youth; and for a time the chances stood equal between them; but she was
too heedless, too natural and good-tempered to obtain a definitive
conquest. However high therefore be her place in the fashionable world,
her rival has unquestionably achieved the highest. Nobody who knows the
causes will think the loser the less amiable.
Among the other female rulers of the first category, I must mention one
or two whom no one may omit who seeks entrance into the sanctuary. At
the very top, is a no longer young but still lovely Countess; one of the
very few Englishwoman of whom it can be said, that she possesses a
perfect, and truly distinguished 'tournure.' With her natural gifts she
would, in any other country, have been thoroughly amiable and
delightful; but here none can escape the deadening impress of that
spirit of caste, so utterly blighted to all that is lovely and loving in
the human heart. * * *
* * * * *
In the age of innocence of the English world of fashion, when the
natives as yet were fain to copy continental manners, and had not
attained to that independence which now asserts its claim to serve as
model to other countries, a Dandy governed by means of his coat; and the
celebrated Brummel tyrannized over town and country, by this simple
instrument, during long years of glory. But this is no longer the case:
the sublime Exclusive, on the contrary, affects a certain inattention to
his dress, which is almost always alike; and is quite above running
after or inventing new fashions: his dress is at most distinguished only
for exquisite neatness and delicacy of texture. Far other qualities are
now necessary to constitute a man of fashion. He must, as formerly in
France, have the reputation of a heartless seducer, and be a _dangerous_
man. But as, with all the good-will in the world, it is not so easy for
men of graceless manners and invincible awkwardness to rival the
brilliant charm and captivating address of the Frenchman of the 'Vieille
Cour,' it is necessary, like Tartuffe, to play the soft and insidious
hypocrite; with the subdued voice which is now the fashion, and false
words, to make a way in the dark to unprincipled acts; such as false
play, or the 'gulling' of a novice in every species of sport, in which
so many young Englishmen find despair and suicide, where they sought
recreation and excitement;--where these arts are not applicable, to
seek, by all sorts of intrigue, to destroy the fortune and reputation of
those who stand in their way, or, at the least, to rob them of all
influence in exclusive society.
He who is intimately acquainted with England's dark side, will not
accuse me of exaggeration in this description. * * *
* * * * *
Let a man's moral and intellectual qualities be what they may, if he is
the fashion, he can say or do nothing that will not be received with
admiration and applause. His words are oracles; his wit _must be_
exquisite, since he has received his patent for it from fashionable
society; and where Fashion speaks, the free Englishman is a slave.
Besides, the vulgar feel that in all matters of art, talent or taste,
they are no very competent judges; they therefore think it safer blindly
to applaud a 'bon mot' when they see it has made their superiors laugh;
or to repeat an opinion which has proceeded from privileged lips:--just
as the public were in the third heavens with ecstasy for a whole winter
at a party of Tyrolese ballad-singers, and rained down money, which the
green butcher-family pocketed with a laugh. * * *
* * * * *
The far-famed Almack's, and the unrivalled puissance of the
Lady-Patronesses, I have already described to you. I must add two signal
acts of their power.
In a fit of pretty ill-humour these high and mighty Ladies ordered that
no person who came after midnight should be admitted. Soon after, the
Duke of Wellington came from the House of Lords a few minutes too late,
and thought he should be certain to find an exception in his favour.
'Point du tout'--the hero of Waterloo could not carry this fortress, and
was obliged to retreat.
Another time the Lady-Patronesses issued a decree, that only gentlemen
who were bow-legged should be permitted to appear in loose pantaloons:
all others were ordered to wear breeches;--in England, where the very
name is forbidden, certainly a bold decree.
The dread of the new tribunal of inquisition was so great, that at first
even this edict was obeyed. But a reaction followed. A great number of
gentlemen appeared at the door in the prohibited pantaloons, and
demanded admittance on the plea of crooked legs, of which they declared
themselves guilty; and, in case they were not believed, invited the
Lady-Patronesses to convince themselves of the fact by personal
inspection. From that time the Ladies have winked at this offending
portion of male attire.
_July 10th._
To-morrow I hope to be able to take my way to wider and freer regions;
and it will be some time before I resume the pent-up life of a city.
Lord Byron somewhere says of himself, that his soul never enjoyed its
full activity but in solitude. This truth is applicable to lesser
people, for it is just so with me. In wearisome society I am but half
conscious of a soul: and I am oppressed by the horrible thought--Now, if
possible, you must be 'amiable.' On the other hand, I am, as you know,
least alone when alone; for then do I the least miss your society, my
best of friends!
However distant you may be, my spirit hovers around your waking and your
dreaming hours; and over sea and mountain my heart feels the
affectionate pulse of yours.