the disguise of a landscape painter, courted and won a simple village
maiden, who was _eunuyée_ to death when she found out the deception--is
based upon absolute fact. The belle of a dozen seasons, rich,
beautiful, sought after, refuses the _élite_ of marriageable parties
in two hemispheres, and then at a day’s notice weds an impoverished
Bohemian, simply because she is touched at observing, during the dance,
that the elbows of his coat sleeve are frayed and shiny from assiduous
(and presumably ill-requitted) desk work! Why do they do it? Why does
the wind change?
Such moods in woman have ever been and doubtless must always be
regarded as the out-cropping of deep and divine instincts. At any rate,
there they are, and what better course than to study and chart them,
even as the multitudinous seas? In this connection, evidently, the
proper study of mankind is woman.
One of the most moving historiettes of the late unfortunate Guy de
Maupassant was entitled, if I remember rightly, “Remorse.” It related
the despairing love of a man who worshipped from afar a splendid
creature of the gay world, in which both laughed and sighed away
their youth. It was only after many years, when both had grown old,
saddened and sedate, that he ventures to declare the passion of his
prime. “Would you,” he asks fervently in a momentary fanning of the old
flame--“would you on a certain night which we both remember well, have
listened to the declaration which I make you now, and what would have
been your answer?” She replies, simply, “My answer would have been,
Yes, with all my heart.” Ah, and it is now too late!
A woman’s humors, then, are somewhat like the Sphinx’s riddle. But
here let the simile stop short. For not only is the woman herself the
riddle, easy enough for him who has the heart to try, but she is also
the prize to be won in the successful solution.
XXVII.
THE SOCIAL SLANG OF PARIS.
Whether it is owing to the French origin of my family, to the fact
that the French tongue was as familiar to me as English when I was a
child, or simply because of my many visits to the “City of Light,” as
its inhabitants proudly call Paris, I do not know; but it has always
been one of my favorite amusements to investigate the picturesque
intricacies of the French language in all its ramifications, and surely
no more amusing study can exist than the branch of a language which is
known as slang.
French slang is wonderfully replete with imagery. Is a man very keen
and impossible to hoodwink? French slang will inform you that “he has
not caught cold in his eyes.” This, of course, illustrates a medical
truth, that people with inflamed eyes are temporarily blind, therefore
that the person in question is clear-sighted in the extreme. To express
that one has an excellent opinion of one’s self, it is casually
remarked that the person “does not wipe his nose with his foot.” That
curious action seems to denote moral and physical self-abasement. This
phrase is classic, since Molière uses it in “Tartuffe.”
Actors complain bitterly in France that a comrade insists on “pulling
the bedquilt toward him,” which means that he tries to concentrate
attention on himself to the exclusion of others, as a selfish person
rolls himself up in the bedclothes, regardless of his companion’s
discomfort.
Retiring for the night is characterized as “wrapping up the meat in its
cloth.” This rather obscure expression is derived from the fact that in
France butchers hang legs of mutton in front of a snowy background of
white napkins, and at nightfall carefully envelop the aforesaid legs
of mutton in the above-mentioned napkins, and tuck them away for the
night. “Chic,” an expression which in its broad meaning of good style
is now incorporated in the language, considered as slang, describes
something non-existent. An author writes “_de chic_” when he discourses
of something whereof he knows nothing; an artist who paints a picture
without a model says that he did it “_de chic_.”
Many French slang phrases are very commonly used in polite society.
It is by no means unusual to hear a lady taking leave of her hostess
remark casually, “I cannot stay, for I have a gnawing worm at the
door.” This mysterious announcement simply means that she has a
carriage by the hour, and, of course, the longer it is kept, the
larger the hole gnawed in the finances. Another generic name for a
cab is “_sapin_” (pine tree), in allusion to the fact that they are
built of pine wood. Umbrellas are christened “pepins,” as they were
supposed, on what authority I do not know, to have been invented by
Pepin, one of the early kings of France. I have seen foreigners, deeply
learned in the classic French, stunned and distracted by the (to them)
incomprehensible remark that some one had “left a pepin in the sapin,”
which meant that an umbrella had been found in a cab.
An expressive slang phrase is the one by which you gently intimate to
a person that his presence is unwelcome; you request him to “go to the
Boulevards and look if I am there.” This, although indirect, is most
certainly categorical. If a thing is utterly impossible of execution,
it is said that “there is no wick,” which would undoubtedly prevent a
lamp from being practicable. A wild-goose chase is called “a search
for a bluebird,” and a thing that will never happen is announced as
waiting for “the week of four Thursdays,” and when you say something
that were best unsaid, you “put your feet in the dish.” The height
of condemnation is reached when you say of any one, “He is as stupid
as the good Lord is good.” Unhappily, with the present mania for
abbreviating, the words “is good” are sometimes omitted, to the horror
of the uninitiated, which is intensified by the placidity of those who
know the whole saying.
To give useless advice is “to stab water with a sword,” and to go on
an expedition and be disappointed is “to break your nose against a
closed door.” “The holy name of a little dog” is a very emphatic oath,
and to call a Frenchman a canary bird is a deadly insult, for which
complaints are sometimes lodged in courts of justice. If you are in
very unpleasant predicament, they say, “you are spinning bad cotton,”
and if you come definitely to grief in any way you are said to be “in
the water.” If anything at once surprising and disagreeable occurs, the
shock is supposed to leave you “with your four horseshoes in the air.”
If you refresh exhausted nature with a drink of absinthe, its green
color causes the remark that you are “strangling a parrot,” and if you
drink champagne of the Clicquot brand, they say “you make eyes at the
widow,” in allusion to Veuve Clicquot, whose name adorns the bottle.
The word “pig” is considered most vulgar in French. If you wish to
designate the animal, you refer to him as “the gentleman dressed in
silk,” as “the companion of St. Anthony;” and yet the expression “my
little pink pig” is a term of endearment among plebeians, as is also
the term “my little cabbage.” If one suffers from nausea, they say
one is “as sick as a walrus,” and if you die, that you “have broken
your pipe,” unless you have been guillotined, when they say “you have
sneezed in the basket,” in allusion to the fact that the criminal’s
head drops into a wicker receptacle prepared for it; and if you are
hanged, you are supposed to have “danced a jig without any floor.” A
man condemned to be beheaded is said to be “about to be shortened.” If
for murder, because “he cooled off an individual,” and the cart which
takes the criminal’s body to the grave is graphically described as the
“cold meat wagon.”
Servants who leave a place are said to have “given back their aprons,”
and when they dip unduly into the marketing money, and charge large
prices for small things, they are said to “set the handle of the
market-basket dancing.” The derivation of that phrase no one seems
to know. An unreliable person is designated as “a basket with a hole
in it,” and a bore is termed “a shaver.” If any one protests loudly
against anything, he is said to utter “the screams of a peacock.” If
you are restless in your movements it is asserted that you “wiggle
like the devil in a holy water font.” A person who accepts flattery
complacently is said to be “drinking milk,” presumably because that
beverage is easily swallowed. The equivalent of the English phrase in
reply to the announcement of an old and well-known fact as something
new and original is existent, though where we would declare that “the
Dutch had taken Holland,” a Frenchman would say sardonically that
“Henri Quatre is on the Pont Neuf Bridge,” in allusion to the fact that
the bridge in question had been adorned, ever since its erection in the
days of Louis XIII., by a very handsome equestrian statue of the fourth
Henry in all his glory. Many comic songs have been woven round this
statue, the most popular and most modern being the one entitled “The
Statue’s Wail,” in which the bronze monarch sets forth his woes with
the recurring refrain:
“I have no umbrella,
When it’s fine I can’t go in;
When there comes a pouring rain,
I am soaked right to the skin.”
This does not sound profound nor telling, but, such as it is, all Paris
howled, whistled, and hummed it, in season and out of season.
Quantities of the slang phrases of Paris originate in the comic songs.
At one time a popular melody was set to a song, whereof the burden was:
“Halloo, there’s Mathieu!
Old man, how do you do?”
It had a tremendous run, and was killed in a very odd manner. A
miserable murderer, named Jean Mathieu, was guillotined, and as usual
the Place de la Roquette, where executions take place, was filled with
a noisy rabble. The execution was rather late, which irritated the
waiting multitude, and finally, when the prison doors were opened and
the criminal appeared, half dead with terror and dragged along by two
of his guards, some one, more irreverent than the rest, shouted:
“Halloo, there’s Mathieu!
Old man, how do you do?”
and the whole crowd took up the song and danced in time to its cadence.
The contrast to the wretch shivering on the brink of eternity, and the
unseemly mirth of the crowd was so ghastly, that the horror felt by the
spectators and shared by those who heard of the occurrence caused the
once popular song to be promptly tabooed.
One of the most in vogue of all modern slang phrases was the peculiarly
senseless remark, “You would think it was veal.” This denotes
admiration and approval. A glorious sunset or a pretty woman was alike
greeted by the same enthusiastic remark, “You would think it was veal.”
This phrase originated in a comic song, with an inordinate number of
verses, of which the following example will give an idea:
“Said the fair Juliet, in a tone of appeal
’Tis not the lark, you would think it was veal.”
Anything more strangely idiotic cannot be imagined, but its very
silliness was an additional attraction, and the phrase ran like
wild-fire through all strata of society.
All these ridiculous comic songs are made popular through the medium
of open-air concerts on the Champs Elysées. Picturesque places they
are, with their blazing festoons of colored lights, their succession
of singers, who vie with each other as to which can possess the worst
voice and sing the most complacently out-of-tune inane ballads. All
traveling Americans know these places where one can dine sumptuously
in a restaurant at the back of the inclosure, and then come out to
sit on the high balcony to sip coffee and enjoy the intellectual (?)
treat afforded by the performance on the tiny stage opposite. When
any of the more fashionable songs are sung, the whole audience joins
in the chorus and keeps time by flapping their spoons against their
glasses. The result is strangely discordant; but as the music fills its
perpetrators with intense and soulful enjoyment, objection would be
cruel and heartless, besides being utterly useless, as these concerts
are virtually Liberty Halls.
To return to slang pure and simple. If one sits up very late and
pines for soda water in the morning hours, his sense of _malaise_ is
described as “an ache of the hair.” If renouncing the solution of a
problem you “give your tongue to cats,” and friskiness of conduct is
denominated as “throwing one’s cap over the mill.” Should a husband pay
attention to any other woman than his wife, “he sticks a penknife into
the marriage contract.” The dignified gentleman who acts as censor and
judges plays, as does the Lord Chamberlain in London, is called by the
strangely incongruous name of “Anastasia.” Wherefore this peculiar
nickname, no one can tell, any more than they can unravel the origin
of the nickname for the guillotine, which grewsome machine is called
Louisette. If you run at full speed, they say you “put your legs on
your neck;” the fury of a storm is gauged by the fact that is “too bad
weather to put even one’s mother-in-law out-of-doors.” A sarcastic
way of saying that a man is stupid is to remark that “where there is
nothing, the king collects no taxes,” and a bow-legged person is said
to “squint with his legs.” If you buy things on credit, you get them
“on your eye,” and if you have savings you have put aside a “pear for
your thirst,” and if you pay cash down you have settled “a ruby on the
finger-nail.” Why? Ah! that I do not know.
I fear we have drifted into what might be denominated the erudite
section of slang; for, as a rule, profound erudition and dense
incomprehensibility go hand in hand. Under these circumstances it is
better to close the chapter.
XXVIII.
THE AGREEABLE MAN.
“Come and dine on Tuesday; I want you to meet such an agreeable man,”
said my friend, and I went.
But the agreeable man was not at all to my taste, although he seemed to
fancy himself immensely. He was fluent and flowery of speech, and he
had seen almost everything under the sun in every corner of the world,
but for that very reason he was fatiguing. One could speak of nothing
without eliciting such a flood of information that one was nearly
drowned in it, and seized upon any straw to reach land again, only to
be submerged afresh before one had done gasping after the first deluge.
And this was what I said to my friend and hostess when she unwisely
insisted upon an opinion. Of course, she didn’t like it; we never do
like to have our friends refuse to look out of our eyes, although we
are constantly declining to look out of theirs.
“Well, what kind of a man do you call an agreeable man if he is not?”
demanded she, rather pettishly.
“What kind of man?” repeated I, musing over the question. “Why, a man
who pleases me is to me an agreeable man.”
“That is to say,” retorted she, laughing, “if you liked that kind of a
man, that is just the kind of man that would please you?”
The entrance of a visitor broke off the conversation; but, as is
my habit when a social question has been raised in society, I
unconsciously carry it home, and sometimes ponder it in the weary hours
of sleepless nights.
What is an agreeable man, and where have I most frequently found him?
demanded I of myself that afternoon as I drove around the park and
exchanged salutations with a hundred or so of my acquaintances. Is it
this horseman? Is it this pedestrian? Is it either of these two with
the tandem team, or is that dear old man in the barouche? But still
the voice within said “No!” The horseman is silly and fatuous; the
pedestrian is buried in abstruse studies, and is at this moment walking
off a surfeit of Semitic roots before undertaking a light collation of
Dead Sea fruits. The two boys with the tandem team will bring it with
them to whatever reception they attend to-night, and tell everybody
just what time Xerxes and Artaxerxes made last week on the trotting
course, and how they are capable of beating Cyrus and Darius “into
fits” at any moment.
As for the old gentleman, he is very dear and very sweet, and I make a
point of talking to him for three minutes whenever we meet, but after
three minutes he has told me all about his health, and where his wife
is, and how warm and crowded the room is, and that is the end of our
subjects of mutual interest, for he is too deaf to hear any remarks I
might offer, and too self-engrossed to care to listen if he could hear.
So collating the egotistical traveler, and the vain exquisite, and the
bookworm, and the horsey pair, and the self-absorbed old gentleman,
one sees that they have one fault in common, and that is selfishness,
and it becomes evident that the agreeable man must not be selfish, or
at least that he must, by education and good breeding, have learned so
to disguise that “original sin” common to every child of Adam that it
shall not offend other people. As for eliminating it, I do not suppose
that is ever done, and perhaps it would not be well if it could be, for
if self-preservation is the first law of nature a certain amount of
selfishness is as necessary to the protection of every man as claws are
to a cat; the thing is to keep those same claws sheathed in a velvet
paw.
But an agreeable man must not make self his perpetual topic, especially
in society or with mere acquaintances. There are, to be sure, occasions
and companies when he can do nothing better than talk of himself, but
he must have that divine gift of tact to know when those occasions
present themselves. Between man and man I doubt if these occasions
ever do present themselves, or if a man is ever interested in getting
an interior view of another man’s character unless in the way of
business, or for legal investigation, or some other practical result.
But a woman, that is to say, an intelligent woman, is generally keenly
interested in studying the “true inwardness” of masculine human nature.
She loves to point out the faults she discovers and to bestow much sage
advice, exhortation and warning; she loves to exclaim in pretty wonder
at modes of thought and action so different from her own, to argue
which method is better, and to ask explanations of what is contrary to
her own experience. In fact, there are appropriate occasions when a man
can establish himself as an agreeable man in no way so surely as to
talk about himself; but, as I said before, he has to know how and when.
But there is one topic perfectly safe for a man to choose if a woman
is his sole auditor, and that is herself. It is an infallible rule for
being agreeable, that is to say, of course, if he knows how to treat
the topic; a stranger must not plunge at once into personalities,
unless, indeed, his auditor is one of those women with whom an
inordinate love of flattery outruns self-respect; such women there
are to whom a man in the first half hour of their acquaintance may
praise her face, her figure, her dancing or her clothes, and meet
with complacent acceptance, but there are other women who would meet
such audacity with freezing rebuke, so that a man has need to be very
careful in the beginning of an acquaintance, although he may be pretty
sure that if he knows my sweet Lady Disdain long enough he will come to
the same point in the end. And, then, there are so many ways of talking
to a woman about herself; personal appearance is the very crudest and
most elementary part of the subject, but it is capable of treatment in
infinite variety.
“I am sure you like Browning,” he says, and she, smiling placidly, asks:
“Why? How can you judge?”
“Because I notice you use some of his wonderfully eloquent turns of
speech. You express yourself, if I may so say, Browningesquely.”
And she is delighted!
Or he remarks: “One can see at a glance that you have traveled a great
deal; that gracious and ready courtesy is only learned in the royal
courts of Europe.”
Or, “I notice that you always wear lilies of the valley, and use that
scent. How delicate and refined it is!”
Perhaps there is nothing so “fetching” to a woman as to have her
favorite perfume and color noticed by a man to whom she has never
mentioned them. Or, going deeper, he appeals to some unusual knowledge
he declares her to possess upon some abstruse subject, and begs for
information, or in most confidential and tentative manner he speaks of
her loving nature, her sweetness of disposition, her gentle faith in
the goodness of those about her, and he warns her of the danger such an
innocent lamb as she incurs by trusting the wolves so fearlessly. Of
course he is no wolf, oh, no! But probably the innocent lamb knows the
marks of a wolf quite well, and will take care of herself even while
she seems implicitly to receive the warnings and revelations of her
kind guide and mentor.
A man who can talk judiciously and acceptably to a woman about herself
will be voted by that woman an agreeable man, and if he has a pretty
large female acquaintance he will have a nucleus of admirers to
proclaim this opinion.
But to be a universally agreeable man--a man whom other men will admit
to be agreeable, although they won’t use that word--requires something
more. A man to be agreeable in general society, at a dinner party, at a
reception, at any of those places, and times when a _tête-à-tête_, is
either impossible or in bad taste, must be able to talk to more than
one person and upon impersonal topics. He must know something about
a great many subjects, and yet not have the air of instructing his
hearers. Nothing is much more irritating than the _ex cathedra_ style,
when the speaker seems to mount a rostrum and hold up his hand for
silence before each utterance. That was the matter with the agreeable
man first mentioned, and he annoyed me so much that I resolutely forgot
all the valuable information so carefully imparted.
Another rock upon which I have seen a great many men meet shipwreck is
unadaptability; they talk and talk well, not too learnedly and not too
satirically, but they talk upon subjects which have no interest for
their audience. A gentleman once called upon me and a bright little
girl who was my guest. He staid nearly two hours, and he talked almost
without intermission upon some scheme for irrigating Arizona and
establishing mills upon the artificial watercourses. I do not doubt
that it was a most brilliant and interesting exposition, if only we had
cared anything at all about the irrigation of Arizona, but my entire
vitality was absorbed in the effort to keep awake and look politely
interested, while my little friend made Punch and Judy puppets out of
her handkerchief and some tidies, and at appropriate moments bobbed Mr.
Punch’s head in assent or caused Columbine to caper with delight.
Certainly that man did not know how to make himself agreeable!
People sometimes ask me, knowing that I am familiar with most parts of
the civilized world, where I have found the most agreeable men and the
most acceptable companions.
It is a hard question to answer, for one’s taste changes so much from
time to time, and according to the conditions of one’s own life.
In early youth I was thrown much with men of Latin blood, Spaniards
and Frenchmen, and naturedly learned to think their modes of thought
and speech, their somewhat formal courtesy and stately grace, the
most agreeable ensemble in the world. Later I have seen very much of
Englishmen, and nothing can be more agreeable than the frank, honest,
high-bred courtesy of a true English gentleman, although he cannot
claim much of grace, vivacity or versatility.
But to-day I give the palm to my own countrymen, for they combine
the splendid strength and honor of the Englishman with the wit and
worldly wisdom of the Frenchman, and the Spaniard’s appreciation
of and graceful devotion to women; in fact, as the people of these
United States are the union of all the races of the earth, where but
among their men should we look for specimens of the best qualities of
all men? Perhaps this estimate will not hold good in all directions;
perhaps not every American combines the romance of the Spaniard with
the wit of the Frenchman, and the nobleness of the Englishman or
the German ancestor of the Englishman, but the combination is very
possible, and in greater or less degree I have seen it among the
agreeable Americans of my acquaintance.
I said so the other day and my hearer at once inquired:
“Where most frequently? North, south, east or west?” and I replied
after due consideration:
“I have found the agreeable man north, south, east _and_ west.”
XXIX.
TABLE MANNERS.
In traveling a good deal by land and sea, in my own country and
countries mine by adoption, I have noticed with some curiosity the
different ways in which people eat, and the traits of character that
employment calls forth.