_Society Jottings.--Blue Blood in the United States.--Fashionable
Society.--Plutocracy.--Parvenus and Arrives.--Literary and
Artistic Society.--Provincialism.--All the Americans have two
Family Names.--Colonels and Judges.--American Hospitality.--
Terrapin and Raw Duck._
A word about American aristocracy, to begin with.
What, American aristocracy?
Yes, certainly.
I assure you that there exist, in America, social sanctuaries into which
it is more difficult to penetrate than into the most exclusive mansions
of the Faubourg Saint-Germain or of Mayfair and Belgravia.
There are in Philadelphia; in Beacon Street, Boston; in Washington
Square (north side), New York; in Virginia; in Canal Street (right
side), New Orleans, Americans who look upon common mortals with much
more pity and contempt than the Montmorencys of France or the Howards of
England.
Americans, not having any king to give them titles of nobility, have
created an aristocracy for themselves. This aristocracy boasts as yet no
dukes, marquises, earls, or barons, but the blue blood is there, it
appears--Dutch blood--and that is sufficient.
When a European nobleman arrives in the States, the American aristocracy
leave cards upon him at the hotel where he has alighted. He may perhaps
be personally known to none; but all nobilities are kindred
everywhere--it is an act of international courtesy. The European
nobleman, who often goes to America for a dowried wife, is much obliged
to them, and returns all the visits paid him.
A New York lady, who is quite an authority upon such matters, told me
one day that Society in New York was composed of only four hundred
persons. Outside this company of _elite_, all Philistines.
Money or celebrity may allow you to enter into this charmed circle, but
you will never belong to it. You will be in it, but not of it. The lady
in question entered also into very minute details on the subject of what
she called the difference between "Society people" and "people in
Society"; but, in spite of all her explanations, I confess I did not
seize all the delicate _nuances_ she tried to convey. All I clearly
understood was that the aristocracy of birth exists in America, not only
in the brains of those who form part of it, but in the eyes of their
compatriots.
The desire to establish an aristocracy of some sort was bound to haunt
the breast of the Americans; it was the only thing that their dollars
seemed unable to procure them.
* * * * *
The second aristocracy is the aristocracy of money--plutocracy. To
belong to this it is not sufficient to be a millionaire; you must, I am
told, belong to a third generation of millionaires. Of such are the
Astors, Vanderbilts, and company. Three quarters of "nobility" are the
necessary key to this little world. The first generation makes the
millions, the second generation is _parvenue_, the third is _arrivee_.
In the eyes of these people to have from five to ten thousand a year is
to be in decent poverty; to have forty or fifty thousand a year is to be
in easy circumstances.
* * * * *
The third aristocracy is the aristocracy of talent, literary and
artistic society. This third aristocracy is incontestably the first, if
you will excuse the Hibernianism.
I do not think that one could find anywhere, or even imagine, a society
more cultivated, more affable, more hospitable, more witty, or more
brilliant. I should like just here to indulge in a string of adjectives
_a la_ Mme. de Sevigne.
One of the consequences of the position which woman takes in the United
States is that, in good American drawing-rooms, conversation is never
dull.
"If I were queen," exclaimed Mme. Recamier one day, "I would command
Mme. de Stael to talk to me all day long." One would like to be able to
give the same order to plenty of American women. In their company
conversation never flags, and always remains within the domains of
_causerie_; they glide lightly from one subject to another, extracting
something fresh from each; pass from the serious to the gay, even to the
frivolous, without becoming common-place; soar again to lofty heights,
but do not disdain to come down to gossip for a minute or two: all this
without a grain of affectation, but with a charm of naturalness that is
delightfully winning.
Frenchwomen are the only ones I know who can compare with the American
lady in charm of conversation; and, even then, I am obliged to admit two
things: that the American women of intellectual society are often more
natural than their French rivals, and that they make less effort to
charm. In a word, with them you are amiable without having to be
gallant; and none of those stereotyped compliments, which so often spoil
the charm of a conversation between a man and a woman, are expected of
you.
In this society the reunions are not only veritable feasts for the mind;
the heart also plays its part. You are welcomed with such cordiality
that you feel at once among friends--friends whom you will have profound
regret at being obliged to quit so soon, and with whom you hope to keep
up relations all your days.
When the steamer left New York harbour, and I was bound for Europe, I
hardly knew whether the desire to see my own country again was stronger
than my regret at leaving America.
After all, thought I, I am not saying _adieu_ to the Americans, but _au
revoir_; a seven days' journey, and I can be among them again.
* * * * *
The large towns of America, even New York, are provincial in this sense:
everyone is interested in what the others do. It is not Paris, still
less London. Thanks to that indefatigable meddler, the American
reporter, who thrusts his nose everywhere, the slightest incidents of
private life are made public, and commented upon right and left
immediately. You need only live a couple of months in one of the large
American cities, no matter which, in order to know everyone, and all
their doings.
The mind of the Americans is always on the alert. They enter into
everything, everything interests them, and there is always some fresh
subject for conversation. If it is not a social event, or a literary or
political one, it is a little scandal, a new religious sect, a new
spiritualistic imposture--faith-healing, mind-cure;[6] conversation
never dies for want of subjects. Exclaim that it is eccentricity if you
like, and you will not be far wrong; but add that it is life, and you
will be right. It is an existence more interesting than French life in
the provinces, as the French poet has described it:--
"You waken, rise, and dress, go out to see the town;
Come home to dine or sup, and then to sleep lie down."
[6] This new craze was upon every tongue at the beginning of
the year. I was assured that, "being ill, you have only to
determine with all your soul that you will get well, and you
are forthwith restored to health." Mind is universal: you
are part of the universal mind, and nothing can really ail
you. So runs the jargon of the sect.
The Americans, and that in every station of life, have almost always
three names: one Christian name and two family ones: George Washington
Smith, Benjamin Franklin Jones, William Tell Brown. I should not have
been astonished to make the acquaintance of a Mr. Napoleon Bonaparte
Robinson. The celebrities do not escape it any more than the rest: Henry
Wadsworth Longfellow, John Greenleaf Whittier, Oliver Wendell Holmes,
Thomas Bailey Aldrich, Richard Watson Gilder, James Russell Lowell,
Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry Ward Beecher, etc., etc. Can one not see in
these double names a title which the father thinks he confers on his
child at the baptismal font?
All new societies have the same weaknesses. On the morrow of the Great
Revolution, did we not call our children Epaminondas, Leonidas, Darius,
Napoleon, etc.?
* * * * *
Every American, with the least self-respect, is colonel or judge. Few
escape it, as Mark Twain once remarked of the decoration of the Legion
of Honour. We are quits, Mark. America has a hundred times as many
colonels as we have knights of the Legion of Honour.
When you are presented to a gentleman in an American drawing-room, and
you have unfortunately not caught his name, there is no need to try and
repair the evil; call him "Colonel," nine times out of ten it is safe;
if luck should be against you, call him "Judge," and you are pretty sure
to be right.
If, however, pursued by the Fates, you should discover that your
interlocutor is neither colonel nor judge, you have yet another
resource--call him "Professor," and you are out of your difficulty: an
American always professes something, an art, a religion, a science, and
you are risking nothing.
I met a few American Colonels who had recently been promoted _misters_.
They were so proud of their new title that they insisted on being
addressed thus.
* * * * *
American hospitality deserves the reputation which it enjoys in Europe.
If it errs, it is perhaps on the side of prodigality. But how criticise
hosts so amiable and so cordial?
American hospitality is princely. You are not often invited, even in
houses where the daily _menu_ is of the most appetising, to go and share
the family dinner. You are not invited to dine--a _fete_ is got up for
you. If this cannot be managed, you are seldom invited at all.
You generally find you have been asked to a banquet: oysters, soup,
_hors d'oeuvre_, fish, _releves_, _entrees_, sorbets, roasts, stew of
terrapin, game (raw canvas-back duck, when in season), salads--five or
six vegetables, pastry, sweets, cheese, ices and dessert, the whole
washed down with the choicest wines, Chateau-Yquem, Amontillado, iced
champagne, Chateau-Lafitte, and such precious beverages.
In good American houses the cooking is excellent; you will not find
better in London and Paris.
The most _recherche_ of American dishes is terrapin stew: when in
season, it figures at every feast. The flavour is so pronounced that one
is bound to think it either delicious or detestable.
Am I obliged to tell you which I think it?
An American asked me one day whether I liked terrapin.
I replied: "It is nothing but polite to bow to the customs of a country
one visits. Terrapin is eaten in the United States, and I eat it."
Canvas-back duck is a great delicacy. It is hung in front of a fire for
a few minutes only. The first time this purple meat is presented to you,
it horrifies you; but I advise you to try and surmount your
repugnance--the dish is exquisite.
In France, the English have the reputation of liking all kinds of meat
very much undercooked. It is only one of the thousand absurd stories
told about them. They prefer their meat very much cooked, on the
contrary.
One of the many jokes on the subject of canvas-back duck which I heard
was this:
One of these birds having been served to an Englishman, he, after a
glance at it, called the waiter and said to him:
"Pass through the kitchen with it once more, please."