_Diamonds.--How Diamonds are Won and Lost in Tripping.--The
Sweat of Jonathan's brow crystallized in his Wife's
Ears.--Avarice is a vice little known in America.--Jonathan is
not the Slave of the Almighty Dollar to the Extent that he is
believed to be._
Man has been perpetuated to expiate the transgression of his first
parent by hard labour. Jonathan is a proof of it.
He labours, he toils, and the sweat of his brow crystallizes upon the
neck and arms of his beloved womankind in the form of diamonds.
To the American woman the diamond is not an object of luxury, it is an
object of prime necessity. An English old maid would do without her tea
before an American woman would go without diamonds.
Oh, those diamonds in America! You see them wherever you go! Not one
woman in a hundred will you see without a pair of them in her ears. It
is an obsession.
Diamonds, at night with evening dress and artificial light, are things
of beauty: but diamonds in the street with morning dress, at early
breakfast in company with morning wrappers; diamonds in the ears, at the
neck, in the bonnet-strings, on arms, on fingers, diamonds all day long
and everywhere, it is a remnant of savagery. Nay, I saw diamonds on
shoe-buckles one day in broad day in a shop.
"There is a woman who is not afraid of tripping and losing her
diamonds," said I to myself; "but perhaps she got them the same way that
she might have lost them. Certainly she cannot be a lady." However, it
appears she was, and a well-known figure in New York Society. So I was
told by the manager of the establishment, who was at the time showing me
over his magnificent rooms.
If good style consists in not doing what the vulgar do, good style in
America ought to consist for one thing in not wearing diamonds--unless
democracy should demand this sign of equality.
Diamonds are worn by the woman of fashion, the tradesman's wife,
shop-girls, work-girls, and servants; and if you see a shabbily-dressed
woman who has not a pair in her ears, you may take it for granted that
she has put them in pawn.
Naturally, in America, as elsewhere, all that sparkles is not diamond.
When you see diamonds in the ears of shop-girls and factory-girls, they
are sham gems bought with well-earned money, or real ones bought with
badly-earned money.
I have seen pretty women completely disfigure themselves by hanging
enormous diamonds in their ears. These ear-drops had a very high
commercial value; but artistic value, none. There is a defect, which
seems to exist everywhere in America--a disposition to imagine that the
value of things is in proportion to their size.
* * * * *
Love of woman, innate in the American, is not enough in itself to
explain the luxury that man lavishes on her in the United States.
America is not the only country where man is devoted to woman and ready
to satisfy all her caprices. The Frenchman is as keenly alive to her
influences as the American, if not more.
The luxury of the American woman must be explained in another way.
Money is easily earned in the United States, and is freely spent.
Business savours more of gambling than of commerce in the proper sense
of the word.
Jonathan, then, is in a position much like that of a man whom I saw give
a hundred franc note to a beggar one day in the streets of Monte Carlo.
"If I win at _trente et quarante_," said he to some one who asked him
how he could do such a foolish thing, "what are a hundred francs to me?
I can afford to be generous to a poor fellow-creature out of it; if I
lose, it is so much that the _croupier_ will not get." When Jonathan
covers his wife with diamonds, he says to himself: "If I win, I can
indulge my wife without inconveniencing myself; if I lose, it is so much
saved from the fray."
This is not all.
If the American thirsts after money, it is not for the love of money as
a rule, but for the love of that which money can buy. In other words,
avarice is a vice almost unknown in America. Jonathan does not amass
gold for the pleasure of adding pile to pile and counting it. He pursues
wealth to improve his position in life and to surround those dependent
upon him with advantages and luxuries. He spends his money as gaily as
he pockets it, especially when it is a question of gratifying his wife
or daughters, who are the objects of his most assiduous attention. He is
the first to admit that their love for diamonds is as absurd as it is
costly, but he is good-humoured and says, "Since they like them, why
should they not have them?"
In Europe, there is a false notion that Jonathan thinks only of money,
that he passes his life in the worship of the almighty dollar. It is an
error. I believe that at heart he cares but little for money. If a
millionaire inspires respect, it is as much for the activity and talent
he has displayed in the winning of his fortune as for the dollars
themselves. An American, who had nothing but his dollars to boast of,
might easily see all English doors open to him, but his millions alone
would not give him the _entree_ into the best society of Boston and New
York. There he would be requested to produce some other recommendation.
An American girl who was rich, but plain and stupid, would always find
some English duke, French marquis, or Italian count, ready to marry her,
but she would have great difficulty in finding an American gentleman who
would look upon her fortune or her _dot_ as a sufficient indemnity.
At a public dinner, the millionaire does not find a place of honour
reserved for him, as he would in England. The seats of honour are
reserved for men of talent. Even in politics, money does not lead to
honours.
No, the Americans do not worship the Golden Calf, as Europeans are often
pleased to imagine.
As to the ladies, that is different--but we shall speak of them in
another chapter.