attire and holyday humor,--to see the bone and sinew of our great
country, the people who make our laws, and for whose good they are
administered by their servants, enjoying a jubilee, and wishing also to
meet some old friends who were to be there (among others, Gen. Wool,
who, though politicians accused him of going to lay pipe for the
presidency, is a right good fellow, and the very soul of old-fashioned
hospitality), I went on one occasion to a little city in western New
York, to attend a State Fair.
On the night of the _fete_ that concluded the affair, your cousins,
Grace and Gerte, to whom you all say I can refuse nothing, however
unreasonable, insisted that I should be their escort, and protested
warmly against my remonstrances upon the absurdity of an old fellow like
me being kept up until after midnight to watch, like a griffin guarding
his treasures, while two silly girls danced with some "whiskered
Pandoor," or some "fierce huzzar," who would be as much puzzled to tell
where he won his epaulettes as was our (militia) Gen. ----, of whom,
when he was presented to that sovereign, on the occasion of a court
levee, Louis Philippe asked, "where he had served!"
It would not become me to repeat half the flattering things by which
their elegant _chaperon_, Mrs. B. seconded the coaxing declarations of
your cousins, that they would be "enough more proud to go with Uncle Hal
than with all the half-dozen beaux together," whose services had been
formally tendered and accepted for the occasion.
"Yes, indeed," cried Gerte, "for Uncle Hal is a _real_ soldier!" And I
believe the wheedling rogue actually pressed her velvety lips to the
ugly sabre scar that helps to mar my time-worn visage.
"Col. Lunettes is too gallant not to lay down his arms when ladies are
his assailants!" said Mrs. B. with one of her conquering smiles. "Well,
ladies," said I, "I cry you mercy--
"'Was ever colonel by such sirens wooed,
Was ever colonel by such sirens won!'"
I have no intention to inflict upon you a long description of the
festivities of the evening. Suffice it to say upon that point, that the
"beauty and fashion," as the newspapers phrase it, not only of the
Empire State, but of the Old Dominion, and others of the fair sisterhood
of our Union, were brilliantly represented.
When our little party entered the dancing-room, which we did at rather a
late hour, for we had been listening to some good speaking in another
apartment--the ladies declared that they preferred to do so, as they
could dance at any time, but rarely had an opportunity of hearing
distinguished men speak in public,--the "observed of all observers,"
among the fairer part of the assembly, and the envy, of course, of all
the male candidates for admiration, was young "General ----," one of the
_aids-de-camp_ of the Governor of the State. In attendance upon his
superior officer, who was present with the rest of his staff, our
juvenile Mars was in full military dress, and made up, as the ladies
say, in the most elaborate and accepted style of love-locks (I have no
idea what their modern name may be), whiskers and moustaches. The glow
that mantled the cheeks of the triumphant Boanerges could not have been
deeper dyed had his "_modesty_," like that of Washington, when
overpowered by the first public tribute rendered to him by Congress,
"been equalled only by his bravery!"
"He above the rest in shape and gesture,
Proudly eminent."
but apparently, wholly unconscious of the attention of which he was the
subject, was smilingly engrossed by his devotion to the changes of the
dance, and to his fair partner; and the last object that attracted my
eye, as we retired from the field of his glory, were the well-padded
military coat, the curling moustaches and sparkling eyes of
"Adjutant-Gen. ----!"
True to my old-fashioned notions of propriety, I went the next morning
to pay my respects to Mrs. B., and to look after your cousins,--especially
that witch Gerte, whom her father had requested me to "keep an eye upon,"
when placing her under my care for the journey to the Fair.
I found the whole fair bevy assembled in the drawing-room, and in high
spirits.
After the usual inquiries put and answered, Grace cried out, "Oh! Uncle
Hal, I must tell you! Gen. ---- has been here this morning! He was
wearing such a beautiful coat!--his dress last night was nothing to
it!--it fairly took all our hearts by storm!"
At these words, a merry twinkle, as bright and harmless as sheet
lightning, darted round the circle.
The master of the house entered at that moment, and before the
conversation he had interrupted was fairly renewed, invited me into the
adjoining dining-room to "take a mouthful of lunch."
While my host and I sat at a side-table, sipping a little excellent old
Cognac, with just a dash of ice water in it (a bad practice, a very bad
practice, by the by, my boys, which I would strenuously counsel you not
to fall into; but an inveterate habit acquired by an old soldier when no
one thought of it being very wrong) the lively chit-chat in the
drawing-room occasionally reached my ears.
"It was tissue, I am quite sure!" said Miss ----.
"No matter about the material--the color would have redeemed anything!"
cried Grace.
"Sea-green!" chimed in the flute notes of another of the gay junto,
"what can equal the General's _verdancy_?"
"What?" (here I recognized the animated voice of the lady of the
mansion); "why, only his _mauvais ton_, in 'congratulating' me upon
having 'so many' at my reception for Governor and Mrs. ----, the other
evening, and his equally flattering assurance that he had not seen so
'brilliant a military turn-out in a long time'--meaning, of course, his
elegant self! You are mistaken, however, Laura, about his coat being of
_tissue_, it was _lawn_, and had just come home from his _lawn-dress_,
when he put it on. I distinctly saw the mark of the smoothing-iron on
the cuff, as well as that his wristband was soiled considerably."
"He had only had time to 'change' his coat since he went 'home with the
girls in the morning,'" chimed in some one, "and his hair, I noticed as
he rose to make what he called his '_farewell bow of exit_,' was filled
with the dust of that dirty ball-room."
"Which couldn't be brushed out without taking out the curl, too, I
suppose!" This last sally emanated I believe, from one of the most
amiable, usually, of the group.
"Well," said the hostess, with a half-sigh of relief, "he seldom
inflicts himself upon me! His grand _entree_ this morning, in the
character of a katy-did, gotten up _a la mode naturelle_," (here there
was a general clapping of hands, accompanied by _bravos_ that would have
rejoiced the heart of a prima donna), "was, no doubt, occasioned by his
having heard some one say that, what vulgar people style a '_party
call_,' was incumbent upon him after my reception. What a pity his
informant had not also enlightened him on another point of _ettiquetty_,
as old Mr. Smith calls it, and so spared me the mortification, my dears,
of presenting to you, as a specimen of the beaux of ----, and one of the
aids-de-camp of Governor ----, a man making a visit of ceremony in a
_bright, pea-green, thin muslin shooting-jacket_!"
* * * * *
Bulwer, the novelist, when I was last in London, some two or three years
ago--and for aught I know he still continues the practice--used to
appear in his seat in the English House of Commons one day in
light-colored hair, eye-brows and whiskers, with an entire suit to
correspond; and the next, perhaps, in black hair, etc., accompanied by a
black coat, neckcloth, and so on throughout the catalogue. A proof of
the admitted _eccentricities of genius_, I suppose.
* * * * *
D----, who is now a very respectable veteran lawyer, and well known in
the courts of the Empire State, was originally a Green Mountain
Boy--tall, a trifle ungainly, with a laugh that might have shaken his
native hills, rather unmanageable hair, each individual member of the
fraternity, instead of regarding the true democratic principle, often
choosing to keep "Independence" on its own account, and a walk that
required the whole breadth of an ordinary side-walk to bring out all its
claims to admiration. Though D---- did not sacrifice to the graces, he
really wrote very clever "Lines;" but his shrewd native sense taught him
that a reputation as a magazine poet would not have a direct tendency to
increase the number of his clients. So the sometime devotee of the Muse
of Poetry, bravely eschewing the open use of a talent that, together
with his ever-ready good-humor and quiet Yankee drollery, had brought
him somewhat into favor in society, despite his natural disadvantages,
entered into partnership with an old practitioner in A----, and bent
himself to his career with sturdy energy of purpose.
"New Year" coming round again in the good old Dutch city where D---- had
pitched his tent, some of his friends offered to take him with them in
their round of calls, and introduce him to such of their fair friends as
it was desirable to know; hinting, at the same time, that this would
afford a suitable occasion for donning a suit of new and fashionable
garments.
On the first of January, therefore, agreeable to appointment, his broad,
pock-marked face--luminous as a colored lantern outside an
oyster-saloon--and his gait more than usually _diffusive_, D---- was
seen coming along from his lodgings, to meet his companions for the
day's expedition, and evidently with sails full set. It soon became
apparent to all beholders, not only that the grub had been transformed
into a full-fledged butterfly of fashion, but--that he wore his long,
wide, ample-caped, new cloak _wrong side out_!
* * * * *
At the recent Peace Convention in Paris, even those strenuous adherents
to _things as they were_, the Turks, wore the usual dress of Europeans
and Americans throughout, with the single exception of the _fez_, which,
I believe, no adherent of Mahomet will renounce, except with his
religion. Young Charles P---- told me that Count Orloff's sable-lined
_talma_ was of the most unexceptionable Parisian cut.
* * * * *
An agreeable young friend of mine, the Rev. Mr. H., contrives to support
a family (Heaven only knows how!) upon the few hundred dollars a year
that make the usual salary of a country clergyman. He indulges himself,
at rare intervals, in a visit to his fashionable city relatives, by way
of necessary relaxation, and to brush up a little in matters of taste,
literature, etc. Perhaps, too, he thinks it well, occasionally, to
return, with his wife and children, the long visits made every summer by
a pretty fair representation of his numerous family circle at the
pleasant little rectory, where refinement, industry, and the ingenuity
of a practical housekeeper, create a charm often lacking in more
pretentious establishments.
On one of these important occasions, it was decided that the handsome
young rector should avail himself of his city jaunt to purchase a new
suit of clothes, his best clerical coat, notwithstanding the most
careful use and the neatest repairing, being no longer presentable for
ceremonious purposes. (I make no doubt that the compatibility of the
contemplated journey and the new clothes, both in the same year, was
anxiously discussed in family council.)
As soon as possible after his arrival in town, my clerical friend
broached the all-important subject of the tailor, to one of his
brothers, a youth of unquestionable authority in such matters, and
invoked his assistance.
"With all my heart, Will, we'll drop in at my own place, as we go down
this morning; they get everything up there artistically." "And at
artistic prices, I fear," soliloquized the new candidate for the honors
of the cloth, with a slight quaking at heart, as a long-cherished plan
for adding, without her previous knowledge, a shawl to the waning bridal
outfit of his self-sacrificing wife, rose before his mental vision.
"But, I say, Will," inquired his modish brother, of our young clergyman,
in a tone of good-humored banter, as they sauntered down Broadway
together, after breakfast, "where did you buy your new _chapeau_?"
"At A----, before leaving home"----
"Excuse me, my dear fellow, but it's a nondescript! It will never do
with your new suit, allow me to say, frankly."
"But the person of whom I bought it had just returned from New York, and
he assured me it was the latest fashion! I gave him eight dollars for
it, at any rate."
"Preposterous!" ejaculated the man of fashion, in a tone portentous as
that which ushered in the "prodigious" of Dominie Sampson, when
astounded by _his_ discoveries in the mysteries of the toilet. "It first
saw the light in the 'rural districts,' depend on't!"
The quizzical glances with which his companion ever and anon scrutinized
the crowning glory of his neat morning attire, as he had previously
thought it, gradually overpowered the philosophy of my friend,--clergyman
though he was--the admitted Adonis of his class in college, and the
favorite of ladies, old and young. The church's
----"favorites are _but men_.
And who e'er felt the stoic when
First conscious of"----
wearing a "shocking bad hat!" The result was, that the condemned article
was exchanged at a fashionable establishment for one fully meeting the
approbation of the modish critic.
"What! another new hat?" cried the young wife, whose quick woman's eye
at once caught the _je ne sais quoi_--the air of the thing, as her
husband rejoined her later in the day.
The gentleman explained;--"And you thought the other so becoming too,
Belle," he added, in a half-deprecatory tone; "but Chauncey was so
strenuous about it, and I knew he would appeal to you, and that you
would not be satisfied without"----
"But they allowed you really nothing for the other, though it was quite
new, and certainly a nice hat. What a pity, now, that you did not travel
in your old one, though it was a little worse for wear, or even in the
cap you bought to fish in. There was Mr. ---- in the same car with us,
looking anything but _elegant_, I am sure, with the queerest-looking old
'Kossuth,' I believe they are called, on, and the roughest overcoat!"
"But, you know, Belle, dear, such a dress is not considered admissible
for the clergy."
"No! well, whatever is sensible and convenient _should_ be, I am
convinced now, if I was not before."
Our young clergyman, as he turned the still-cherished plan of the new
shawl anxiously in his mind, a "sadder and a wiser" man than before,
determined never again to buy a new dress hat expressly to perform a
journey in, especially when going directly from the "rural districts" to
a large city; besides laying up for future use some other collateral
resolutions and reflections of an equally wise and practical character.
"Why, Belle," said the "superb" Chauncey to his fair sister-in-law,
drawing her little son nearer to him, as he leaned on his mother's lap
after dinner, "this is really a magnificent boy, 'pon-my-word!--you
should take him to 'Bradbrook's' and fit him up! Would you like a velvet
jacket, eh, my fine fellow?"
The curly-headed child pointed his dimpled forefinger towards the pretty
garment he was wearing, and said, timidly, "Pretty new coata, mamma made
for him."
"I believe," responded the young mother, quietly, bending her beaming
eyes upon the little face lovingly upturned to hers, "that Willie will
have to do without a velvet jacket for the present; mamma intended to
get one for him in New York, but"----the sentence was finished mentally
with "papa's second new hat has taken the money." This will reveal the
secretly-cherished plan of the young rector's wife, with which a faint
sketch of a pretty cap to crown the shining curls of her darling, had
dimly mingled, almost unconsciously to herself, until brought out by the
power of that "tide in the affairs of men"--necessity!
* * * * *
Sitting in the same seat in a railroad car with ex-Chief-Justice ----,
than whom there is no more eminent jurist nor finished gentleman in the
land, discoursing earnestly of old times and new, our conversation was
suddenly interrupted, as we stopped to feed our iron steed, by the loud
salutation of a youth who seemed to take more pains than the _law_
requires under such circumstances, to enunciate the name of my
companion. "Pleasant morning, Judge!--if I don't intrude" (a glance at
me, and no introduction by the chief-justice), "is this seat
unoccupied?" And down he sat _vis-a-vis_ to us.
He had the talk pretty much to himself, for a while. By-and-by, our
uninvited guest apologized for his gloves, half-worn fine black kid.
They were "really too bad; must have taken them up by mistake, in the
hurry of getting off," etc.
"I always keep an old pair expressly for these abominably dirty cars,
but, I believe, I have forgotten to put them on this morning," said the
venerable lawyer, in a peculiarly quiet tone, unfolding, as he spoke,
the ample, old-fashioned, travel-worn camlet cloak, beneath which his
arms had hitherto been crossed, and thus revealing his neat, simple
dress, and the warm, clean lining of his outer garment. Taking a
well-worn pair of soft beaver gloves from an inside pocket, the judge,
with an air of peculiar deliberation, drew them upon hands, "small to a
fault," as the novels say, and as white as those myths are supposed to
be, and re-adjusted his arms and cloak with the same deliberation. A
nice observer might note a slight gleam of the well-known smile, whose
expressive sarcasm had so often withstood professional insolence and
ignorance, as the chief justice turned his head, and cursorily surveyed
his fellow-passengers.
"Who is that young man, sir?" I inquired, when we were, soon after,
upon again stopping, relieved of the presence of this jackanapes.
"His name is ----," replied the judge. "A scion of the law, I think
now--a son of the ----, who made a fortune, you may remember, by the
sudden rise of West India molasses, some few years ago (a pause). I
never rate a man by his antecedents, Colonel, but a little modesty is
always suitable and becoming, in _very young persons_," added the
chief-justice, somewhat sententiously.
* * * * *
You will, perhaps, remember the commotion created by the promulgation of
Marcy's edict respecting the dress to be worn on state occasions, by our
representatives abroad.
Our accomplished young countryman, Mr. H. S----, though nominally
Secretary of Legation, was virtually our minister, at St. Cloud, when
this order was published. In simple compliance with his instructions,
the American secretary appeared at a court dinner in the suit of plain
black, prescribed by his government. The premonitions of a revolution
could scarcely have created more consternation among the officials of
the Tuileries, and even the diplomatic dignitaries assembled,
experienced a sensation. The Turkish ambassador was surprised out of the
usually imperturbable stoicism of a devout follower of the mighty
prophet of Moslemdom.
"What are you doing here," he growled, as the young republican arrested
his attention, in language more remarkable for Oriental figurativeness
than for Parisian elegance, "a raven among so many birds of gay
plumage?"
The newspaper writers of the day, commenting upon this, said that the
minister from Venezuela--the most insignificant government represented,
was most bedizened with gold lace, stars, and trumpery of every sort.
These letters, prepared for home perusal, were re-published in the Paris
papers, and of course, met the eyes of all the parties alluded to!
S---- told one of my friends that among the annoyances to which the
whole affair subjected him, was that of being subsequently constantly
thrown in contact with the various personages with whose names his own
had been, without his previous knowledge, unceremoniously, associated.
No doubt, however, his skillful diplomacy carried him as triumphantly
through this difficulty as through others of vital importance.
Dining with this polished young diplomate, at the Tremont in Boston,
where we met soon after his return home, the conversation turned upon
the personal appearance of Louis Napoleon, and from his wire-drawn
moustaches diverged to the subject of beards in general.
"The truth is, Col. Lunettes," said Mr. S----, in French,--which by the
way, he both speaks and writes, _as he does his native tongue_, with
great purity and propriety, and this to our shame be it said, is far
enough from being generally the case with our various officials abroad,
"the truth is, Col. Lunettes, (I detected a just perceptible glance at
my furrowed cheek, which was, however, smooth-shaven as his own) that _a
clean face is getting to be the distinctive mark of a gentleman_!"
* * * * *
"My dear Miss ----," said I to a charming woman, whose cordial smile of
recognition drew me within the magic circle of her influence, at a ball,
where I had been for some little time a 'quiet looker-on,' "will you
pardon the temerity of an old friend in inquiring what induced your
chilling reception of the handsome stranger whom I saw presented to you
with such _empressement_ by our host a little while ago? If you could
have seen the admiration with which he long regarded you at a distance,
'his eye in a fine frenzy rolling,'--as he leaned against the--the
corner of the big fiddle, there, while the music was at supper!--could
you have seen this, as others saw it, and then the look of deep
desperation with which he swallowed a bottle of champagne at a standing,
when he fled from your frowns to the supper-room!--Really, Miss ----, I
have seldom had my sympathies so excited for a stranger"--
By this time her ringing laugh stirred the blood into quicker pulsations
through my time-steeled heart; "Oh, Colonel, Colonel!" cried she, in
tones, mirth-engendering as the silvery call of Dian, goddess of the
dewy morn, (is that poetry, I wonder?) "I see you are just as
delightfully quizzical as during our Alpine journey together. I have
never quite forgiven the Fates for robbing our party of so inimitable a
_compagnon de voyage_, and me of"--"so devout an admirer!" I chimed in:
"and me of so devout an admirer," proceeded the lady, with a quick
spirit-flash in her deep violet eyes, "and when we were just becoming so
well acquainted, too! It was too provoking! Do you remember the
amusement we had from recalling the various characteristic exclamations
of the different members of our party, when the Italian plains burst
upon our view, out-spread before us in the morning sunlight, after that
horrid night in the shepherd's hut?"
"If I recollect, it was your avowed slave, 'gentleman John' as you
called him, who shouted, 'O, ye Gods and little fishes!--nothing bad
about that, by thunder?' That fellow carried the ladies, as he did
everything else, by storm"--
"No, no, Colonel, not _all_ the ladies; but I was going to tell you
about this 'mysterious stranger,' or 'romantic stranger'--what
_sobriquet_ did you give him? Suppose we go nearer the door, it is so
warm here," and she twined an arm that threw Powers into a rapture,[2]
confidingly around the support proffered her by an old soldier, and we
gradually escaped from the crowd (any one of the men would willingly
have stillettoed me, I dare say!) into a cool corner of the hall.
[2] Remind me to tell you about that some other time.
"I am sorry you thought me rude, colonel," she began, a tint, soft as
the shadow of a crimson rose flitting over her expressive face.
I entered a protest.
"I dare say my manner was peculiar," resumed my fair companion, "but I
fear 'no rule of courtly grace to measured mood' will ever 'train' my
_face_; and--the truth is, Colonel, that, though I love and honor my own
countrymen beyond the men of all other lands, I _do_ wish they would
imitate well-bred foreigners in some respects. I hate coxcombs! I
believe every woman does at heart. Now, here is this person, Colonel
C----, I think, if I heard the name?"
"Wherefore _Colonel_, and of what?" thought I, but I only
answered--"Really, I am not able to say."