JAN. 20. NEW-YORK. NO. I.
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Non hodie si
Exclusus fuero, desistam; tempora quæram;
Occurram in triviis; deducam.
—Hor.1 Sat. ix. 58.
You know, my dear Fritz, that I am not unused
to the handling of a glass; and that I have amused
myself for a considerable number of years in looking
about the world, as carelessly and freely as I
chose. Now, it has occurred to me, in the opening
of this new half-century, (may you live to the
end of it!) that in common justice, I ought to
make such return as lies in my power, by attempting
to amuse some little portion of that world,
which has so long and gratuitously amused me.
You stare hugely, to find your old friend become
a man of type, and making his New-Year's
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greetings in veritable print. But book-making,
let me tell you, is now-a-days but a very small
affair; since every blue-stocking thinks it worth
her while to spin out rhymes for the lady journals;
and the old class of wholesome authors in shabby
coats, and dirty linen, is almost supplanted by a
great tribe of coxcomb writers, in opera gloves,
and in velvet trimmings.
I am aware that I am challenging, in this way,
a degree of attention from the very enlightened
public of the city, which possibly I may never get;
and that I wantonly assume a task, which the
world, in its wisdom, may decide to be wholly beyond
my powers. But I console myself with the
reflection, that in this affair of book-making, I
have got no reputation to lose; and indeed, were it
otherwise, I should be much disposed to question
whether, in this day of mushroom growth, it would
not be more creditable to lose reputation, than to
gain it.
To fame, or to what passes for it now—to newspaper-mention,
I am fortunately wholly unknown:
Since the days of the old College catalogue,—with
the exception, indeed, of some half dozen passenger
rolls of Foreign Packets,—I do not remember ever
to have seen my name in print; nor shall I flatter
my vanity by heralding it now.
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I shall lose thus, it is true, the sympathies of
friends and acquaintances; for I shall maintain
an incognito as strictly in the circles where I am
cordially received, as in the public talk. My
papers, then, will have no support of friends, and
no hireling praise: on the other hand, I shall have
no enemies who can throw an old and cherished
bitterness into their condemnation. And this last,
I reckon no small point; since the popular litterateurs
of the city, as I am told, are forever quarreling,
and barking at each other, like so many apes
of Siam. Now, as the critical attachés to this
amiable fraternity of town writers will have, in
my case, no reputation to pull down, and no old
grudge to satisfy, I have a hope of passing scotfree,—
without so much as a single vagabond pen
being wet to dampen my fire. But let me warn
them, that if they choose to bark, they may bark
till their lungs are sore, and they will draw out no
newspaper card in reply, nor shall I suborn any of
their fraternity to bolster me up.
It would be very idle to pretend, my dear Fritz,
that in printing my letters, I had not some hope of
doing the public a trifling service. There are errors
which need only to be mentioned, to be frowned
upon; and there are virtues, which an approving
word, even of a stranger, will encourage.
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Both of these objects belong to my plan; yet my
strictures shall not be personal, or invidious. It
will be easy, surely, to carry with me the sympathies
of all sensible people, in a little harmless
ridicule of the foibles of the day, without citing
personal instance; and it will be vastly easier, in
such Babylon as ours, to designate a virtue, without
naming its possessor!
Still, you know me too well, to believe that I
shall be frightened out of free, or even caustic remark,
by any critique of the papers, or by any
dignified frown of the literary coteries of the city.
My publisher, indeed, has assured me, that without
favorable mention from such and such newspapers,
my work would all be idle, and my toil
all be damned in advance. One of the journals,
he told me, if carefully treated with, would make
the merits of my plan known to the whole fashionable
world;—nay, that a breath of praise from that
quarter, would make my letters, fashionable letters.
He cited two or three books, which by a
single half-column of commendation, had been secured
the run of the town; and he assured me
that not a few boarding-school misses were crazily
in love with the authors bepraised by the journal in
question; and moreover, that its editor had secured
eligible husbands to some half dozen despairing
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literary spinsters, who had been honored with assiduous,
and determined complimentary notices,
at his hands.
Another journal, I was told, must be conciliated,
or it would become rank assailant, both of my design
and of its execution; though, by my publisher's
own confession, it seemed quite questionable,
if its assaults would not work me more favor, even
than the prettiest of its compliments. Another,
whose literary budget was most astutely managed
by a keen admirer of the late Mr. Charles Fourier,
would carry news of me to all the hotel tables of
the town; and a flattering notice, if it could be secured,
would make my papers particularly palatable
to all who make a joke of society. A fourth,
read at all tea-drinkings, and very safe for Sunday
perusal, or for nervous invalids, would give me the
stamp of propriety among good old ladies, and all
respectable people: And yet another, by bare mention—
if only the types did not get askew,—would
make me matter of gossip with all such gadding,
companionable housewives, as are forever on the
look-out for terrible casualties, personal movements,
and arrivals at the hotels.
My publisher farther suggested a connection
with some one of those literary coteries, which he
tells me belong to the reading population of the
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town, and which would trumpet my design in a
quiet way, at social gatherings—make my papers a
standard tea-topic, and flatter even my short-comings.
Some of these coteries, he told me, had stated
meetings, at which all new literary matters were
discussed over coffee and ices; and that it needed
only a rehearsal from the lips of some blooming
littérateure in bodice, and an approving word or
two from some of the committee managers, to give
to the work of a new writer the dignity of reputation.
To the suggestion in regard to the newspapers,
which touched my publisher in a tender point—his
purse—I replied, by enclosing him a cheque, which
would secure him against all possible loss.
Of the coteries, I told him, I was wholly unknown;
and as it would come into my plan to
speak very freely of all such cliques as assume the
privilege of giving to the town its literary opinions,
I begged to be excused from making any overtures.
Nor will I conceal the fact, that this decision
of mine was sustained by the conviction that
all such overtures, coming from one in my humble
condition in the literary world, would be treated
with rank disdain.
As for topic, it will vary with the week, and with
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my humor. Sometimes I shall fill my papers with
portraits, or such social usages as prevail, and as
seem to me deserving of remark; and shall endeavor
to give you an idea of our town life, by calling
up to your eye appearances of street and play-house.
At other times, I shall hope to light your
features into a smile, by sketching, in my careless
way, the lounges and loges of the Opera, and perhaps
an interior of City Salon—with this special and
firm proviso, however—that in no instance the hospitality
which may be accorded to me as a stranger,
will be abused. You will understand, then,
that when I speak of the receptions of such as
Mistress Dolly Dragall—not that I have the honor
of any such acquaintance, and am abusing a tender
confidence,—but that I make her a type (if she
really exist) of some particular usage, and hope
honestly to do her honor, by extending the publicity
of her charms, and to flatter her vanity by descanting
on the suavity of her address.
Town coats, and costumes, and mantillas, will
not be out of the range of my Lorgnette, and any
innocent little extravagances of hat, or pelisse, or
shoe-tie, will be touched for your amusement, as
daintily as the prettiest flower wreaths in the
hands of Miss Lawson's girls.
I shall depict for you, from time to time, samples
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of the different social stages and fashionable gradations
which meet my eye; and shall try to satisfy
your country curiosity, by testing their groundwork.
You must not be surprised, indeed, my
dear Fritz, if within the range of my glass, should
come up some old country acquaintances, whom
we remember years ago in pretty rustic deshabille,
and with strong nasal twang,—now riding in carriages,
emblazoned with such heraldry as does
honor to the ingenuity of Collis and Lawrence![1]
Delicate work, you will say; but I know no reason
in the world why fashionable pretensions, however
noisy in their claims, or however successful in their
empiricism, should be too high or too sacred for
the curious and earnest gaze of a simple-minded
looker-on, even though he avail himself of the
slightly magnifying powers of a Lorgnette.
As for literary opinions, and men, and books,
they will drop into my papers at intervals; not so
much as topic for learned and critical remark, as
by way of weather-cocks to show how the current
of town opinions is drifting. Book-making has become
so much a matter of trade, mere accommodation
of supply to demand, that it seems to me
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far more reasonable, on all principles of public
economy, to rail at the readers of bad books rather
than their writers.
Religious and moral habitudes—their tendencies
and exhibitions—will without doubt, occasionally
sweep over the field of vision, and if they do not
pass so quickly as to render the effort vain, they
shall be reduced to some sort of classification. Indeed,
I shall make very free to speak of the innumerable
bickerings and schisms, which, as I hear,
belong to church life in town; nor between doubtful
Bishops, and pungent Lady Alice in breeches,
will the topic be without its sources of amusement.
And if a little good-natured raillery may have the
effect of rendering ridiculous such absurdities as
belong to town practices of worship, I shall feel as
if engaged in an Apostolic labor; and as if, without
the laying on of hands, I were as good a servant
of the Mother Church, as the leanest of the
Bishops, or the fattest of the Vestry-men. Nor
shall the Barnburners, wire-pullers, office-seekers,
journalists, and other political quidnuncs be passed
by unceremoniously. I promise you, they shall
have their sittings. I might even adopt for motto,
if it had not been adopted ad nauseam, that line
of Cato:—
Nihil humani a me alienum puto.
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And I could translate it with more freedom than
would have been tolerated on the university benches,—
nothing touches humanity, but touches me.
In short, my dear Fritz, this Lorgnette of mine
will range very much as my whim directs. In
morals, it will aim to be correct; in religion, to be
respectful; in literature, modest; in the arts, attentive;
in fashion, observing; in society, free; in
narrative, to be honest; in advice, to be sound; in
satire, to be hearty; and in general character,
whatever may be the critical opinions of the small
littérateurs, or the hints of fashionable patrons, to
be only—itself.
The Lorgnette will puff no books or tarts. If
any venders of such wares send them to the publisher,
it must be at their own risk. If the tarts
are good, they will be eaten; if the books are good,
they will be kept. Of the two, I may frankly say,
the tarts would be preferred.
Sunt bona, sunt quædam mediocria, sunt mala plura.
—Martial.
You shall now see what matter I have made of
it, in searching out my winter's lodgings. In Europe,
you know, it is of but little account where a
stranger bachelor may live in a city. He is comparatively
so little known or inquired for, chez lui,
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that he may inhabit garret or palace, as he fancies
best. You will remember too, without doubt, our
pretentious acquaintance of London, who, with a
dusky chamber in Fleet street, received all his
friends at a fashionable house of the new Palace
Yard. His letters and cards being all addressed to
the Hotel, and a small periodical fee to the head-waiter,
secured not only their acceptance at his
hands, but the post services of a little boy who ran,
on the occasion of a call upon our acquaintance,
from the hotel into Fleet street.
In Paris, even this sham appearance is unnecessary.
Both you and myself have thought it no
discredit to leave our address at the hotel of Madame
C—, of the Place Vendome, dating from
the eastern end of the dirty Rue Jacob. And you
will recall with a smile, after so long a lapse of
time, our raillery of a certain transatlantic friend,
who thought it necessary to take brilliant apartments
in the Rue de Hauteville, and to order his
dinners from the Café de Paris, and who was so astonished
to find his salon accueil so wofully disproportionate
to the tale of his weekly expenses!
In New-York, as I am told, the case is very different;
and a man is not a little estimated by the
street he lives in, or the house from which he hails.
An officious, but good-natured friend, who was
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possibly not aware that I possessed some previous acquaintance
with the purlieus of the city, hinted
to me that if I wished to take rank among what
he called genteel people, I must take lodgings far
up town. And another suggested, when I spoke of
remaining at what seemed to me a very fair sort of
hotel, that it would never do; that the hotel was
not at all the thing, and that a miserable attic in a
fashionable up-town house, which he took the liberty
of recommending, would be much more to my
credit and standing. He even hinted, that if I persisted
in remaining in such quarters, for their size
and comforts, I should take frequent evening
walks in the direction he had named, and so make
a mock of living, where fashionable men made their
head-quarters. He further told me, by way of inducement,
of one or two individuals, who with a
bare pittance to keep soul and body together, had
nevertheless, by dint of scrupulous economy and
nice exactitude in such matters, succeeded in passing
a couple of seasons for men of wealth and ton,
and had eventually carried off splendid fortunes in
the doweries of retired mercers' daughters.
Now, as you know, my dear fellow, that I am
not wintering in town to make a name, either with
fashionable people, or fashion hunters, and that
my age would exculpate me from all intentions
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upon retired mercers' daughters, I paid very little
regard to any such suggestions.
I have lived long enough to consult the ease and
comforts of life far more than appearances; and as
I wished a quiet neighborhood, and one which should
not be far removed from what would, in all probability,
be my usual haunts, to wit, the Exchange,
the Society Library, and the Club in which I have
become enrolled, I determined to set at naught all
opinions of place, and to take such lodgings as
suited my fancy.
Among the advertisements which met my eye in
the papers, not a few contained provisos to the
intent, that references would be expected; I therefore
supplied myself with a few of the cards of the
mercantile houses to which I had been accredited,
and which, at least, could substantiate my ability
to pay for a year's lodging.
It was a wet, gloomy day on which I made my
first trial, and I had put on an old pea-jacket which
had seen much ocean service, and a very shabby hat.
The landlady I first addressed—a stout buxom old
lady in black and crimson calico, looked rather
suspiciously at my coat, but prayed me to be seated,—
remarked upon the weather, and from the
weather ran on with a very glib tongue to the gaieties
of the town. She begged to know if I had the
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acquaintance of Messrs. So and So, who had some
time been lodgers in her house; hinted that perhaps
I might know another gentleman who was in
excellent society, a man of large fortune, and who
visited Messrs. So and So; but finding me incorrigible
on these points, and only anxious to secure a quiet,
comfortable room, she restrained somewhat the
glibness of her speech. Her rooms proved not at
all to my taste.
Having bade her good morning, which she met
with a very condescending sweep of her black and
crimson calico, I found myself next in a dingy
parlor, hung with faded damask curtains. A
slattern girl, in very showy merino, who was
thrumming at a piano sadly out of tune, met my
entrance with a very low and supercilious bow, and
continued her employment, which, so far as I could
judge, was a succession of efforts to catch some of
the worst, thought most striking passages of Don
Pasquale.
The landlady presently came in, trimmed off
with a tremendous flounce, and curtseying and
bowing together, in a way that might have taken a
man of livelier temperament off his legs. I presented
one of the cards of the commercial house, and
begged to know if, under such recommendation,
she would allow me the favor of looking at her rooms.
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She assured me that she would be most happy;
at the same time eyeing my coat and hat with that
look of thorough curiosity, which I find belongs to
lodging-house keepers in all parts of the world.
She informed me that the neighborhood was
highly respectable, and that her lodgers were,
many of them, connected with some of the first
families of the town; and thereupon she commenced
enumerating to me a galaxy of names, which she
did with an air that she seemed to think would
utterly confound and embarrass a man in such
damaged pea-jacket as I happened to be wearing.
I maintained, however, sufficient composure to bow
very graciously at the announcement of each name,
and to tell her plainly at the end, that I knew
nothing of them.
She was evidently thwarted, but determined to
try me next by her scale of prices. She ushered
me into a dim, shabbily furnished upper parlor,
which she assured me was a charming apartment,
and had been occupied by a gentleman of high distinction
in the town circles. She directed my especial
attention to the fine heavy old furniture,
which, to be sure, was heavy and old enough; but
not finding me to join in her ecstasies, she asked if
I had been long in the city?
On hearing that I had but recently returned from
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a long residence in the country, she launched out
into praises of town life:—had no doubt that I
would find it delightful; and, glancing at the card,
thought it would be easy to secure an introduction—
indeed, she said she had frequent sawraze at her
own house, at which a Mrs. Somebody was a frequent
attendant; and she would, if I took her
rooms, interest herself as much as possible in my
behalf. She hoped I loved music; her daughter
Fanny, she said, was “a ammature,”—possibly I
might have remarked her execution in the parlor.
The truth was, Fanny's execution was even now
painfully distinct, and utterly dissipated any
thought I might have entertained of engaging
rooms in so close proximity with the parlor instrument.
My next negotiation was with a little, thin,
weazen-faced French lady, of a certain age, who
was most earnest, notwithstanding my pea-jacket,
with the praise of her fort jolies chambers. She
smiled at my card of reference; plumed herself on
being able to detect at a glance a lodger “comme
il faut;”—complimented my French, and showed
me such dirty apartments that I was fain to pay
her back in her own coin, and ended with regretting
that her charming rooms should be all so
high, or so low, as to prevent my becoming a
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lodger with so gracious and interesting a young
lady. We parted, of course, capital friends.
My next adventure was with a very prim and
demure-faced little lady in black, occupying a
small house, which she told me had been the property
of her poor husband, who was now dead (and
she sighed), and who had been well known on
'Change, where, if I chose, I could make inquiries
which would satisfy me as to respectability. She
showed me a quiet, neat-looking room, upon the
second floor, looking out upon a small court, garnished
with low roofs and brick walls, and a single
sickly-looking espalier peach-tree. The furniture
was simple, but substantial; a pleasant, “tasteful”
gentleman, with his wife, she told me, occupied
the front-room,—a very respectable old man was
above, and her nieces, from the country, occupied
the remaining attic.
I thought it would be a quiet place for my work,
where I should be out of the reach and knowledge
of prying eyes; and where, my dear Fritz, I could
quietly entertain you, on your visits to the city;—so
I closed with her terms, and am now writing from
a little white table which stands before the grate.
The “tasteful” gentleman proves to be a dashing
buck, who wears very broad plaid to his pantaloons;
he has over-reached himself in marriage,
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and is now paying the forfeit in these quiet chambers,
and only gratifying the old exuberance of his
nature by an occasional Sunday dash, in buggy and
pair, upon the Third Avenue. His wife, of whom
I only occasionally catch sight, sports now and
then a superb satin cloak at the Opera or Grace
Church, after which she lies by for a week's recruit.
A thick partition is between our rooms, so that only
a confused murmur of their altercations reaches
my ear. Once, when the hall doors were open, I
caught a few words very sharply uttered, such as,
“satin cloaks,” “avenue rides,” “livery bills,”
“Stewart's,” “my money,” “breaking heart,”
“such a wife,” ending, so far as I could judge, in
the conquest and humiliation of my “tasteful”
neighbor.
The old gentleman above stairs goes to bed regularly
at nine, before which he reads in a loud,
nasal tone, a passage from the Psalms. He is a
quiet, good-hearted old gentleman, who has seen
the city growth, he tells me, for fifty years past.
He never went out of town further than Newark,
where he has a brother residing; yet he sometimes
gives me very wholesome advice, and often much
valuable information about old families and localities
of the town. He takes maccoboy snuff out of
a box ornamented with the head of Washington,
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and turns up his nose at what he calls the “fippyfoppery”
of the day. I find that, on many points,
we are capitally agreed; and though he shakes his
head at the French poets which are in my librarycase,
he approves highly my good sense in cherishing
an old family copy of Scott's Bible.
The nieces are tidy, prim girls, who are completing
their education, by reading French phrase
books, Paradise Lost, a pamphlet on Etiquette, and
Tupper's Proverbial Philosophy, which they declare
to be “sweet.” They express, as sensible girls
should, who know little or nothing of the matter, a
great contempt for the Opera, and most of the fashionable
amusements. Yet I observe, that they
are always very earnest in their inquiries as to
how the house was made up, and about the dresses
of the ladies; and if they can draw me into a little
town gossip about the somewhat notorious occupants
of particular boxes, they seem delighted with
their success. And I once knew them to walk
the whole length of the street, in the hope of seeing
the Opera troupe, as it came out from rehearsal.
They are devoted readers of the Lady's Book, and
Mother's Magazine, though very anxious to get an
occasional look at the Home Journal, which the
tasteful gentleman sometimes purchases; though
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the aunt and the old gray-haired lodger persist in
condemning it as silly, gossiping trash.
They occasionally walk Broadway in their best
hats, to admire the cloaks and mantillas, and yet
will talk very earnestly in condemnation of the
foolish extravagance of town-ladies. Though they
make bold to decry the rules of fashion, and to
inveigh against the pursuit of particular, foolish
fancies, I find them very ready to suggest to me
my short-comings in matters of town etiquette, and
they have latterly hinted at some changes of dress,
which they are kind enough to say would quite set
me up on Broadway, and give me a creditable
position at the concerts. My age enables me to
bear this very composedly; and further, to crack
occasional jokes with them about matrimony,
and affairs of gallantry, at which they blush, and
affect to be very angry—but are very sure to pardon
me, after an incredibly short probation.
Upon the whole, they are quiet, well-disposed
girls, who would not make it a material objection
to a lover, that he was an Opera-goer, or a little
of a Roué: withal, they are small talkers, and do
not play the piano.
As you will readily believe, my life passes in
such lodgings in the most quiet way imaginable;
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and between the old-fashioned talk of the gray-haired
lodger, and the dashing conversation of the
tasteful gentleman, added to the every-day observations
of the demure nieces, I am forming very
rapidly a pretty set of conclusions about the classes
to which they respectively belong.
But these are by no means all the acquaintances
of whose observations I can avail myself; and I
shall introduce you, from time to time, to others of
wholly different mettle. I shall only excite your
curiosity now, by saying that one is a play-actor,—
another, a sexton of a fashionable church,—a
third is an officer high in the annals of the police,—
a fourth is a keen lawyer, one of whose eyes is
worth most men's two, — a fifth is a kind and
gossiping old lady, who knows half the scandal of
the town, with whom I am frequently treated to
a drive along the Bloomingdale road, much to the
astonishment of the girl lodgers, and of the tasteful
gentleman. Still another is a prim clergyman,
who, though he is not an Opera-goer, has yet
a good ear for a fiddle, and a very delicate eye for
mantillas or shoe-ties.
If the mails are true, you will smoke your Tuesday's
cigar over this paper; and if you are the
friend I take you for, you will look each successive
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week, with no little curiosity, for the continuance
of my observations upon Life in Town.
Though the Lorgnette is set at the head of my
page, you need not suppose that I shall forbear
taking an occasional squint, with my naked eye,
either above or below; and though I shall sign this
Timon, you must not think, my dear Fritz, that I
have entered any Trophonian Cave, or that I cannot,
when the humor takes me, play the Merry
Andrew, with the gayest of the Town wits.
Timon.
eaf279v1.n1[1] Eminent carriage manufacturers in New-York; who, if they are
duly grateful for this allusion, will send one of their new Britskas to
the editor of the Lorgnette.
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JAN. 30. NEW-YORK. NO. 2.
Ce sont partout des sujets de satire,
Et comme spectateur, ne puis-je pas en rire?
Ecole des Femmes.
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Another week has gone by, my dear Fritz, in
which the town has been full of its Carnival festivities.
Cheeks that were rosy in the opening of the
winter, are losing, I see, a little of their vermilion;
and the heavy velvet visites, in this spring-like season,
are worn with a languid air.
I little thought, in penning my last, that its revelations
would betray me; you can judge then of
my surprise in being accosted, only two days after
its appearance, with the brusque salutation, “Allons
done, mon cher Timon!”
It seems that my portraits of the tasteful
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gentleman and the girls, had been recognized by an acquaintance
who sometimes passes an evening at my
chambers, over a quiet eigar and a brandy toddy.
I have cautioned him, however, against any revelations,
and shall now feel myself at liberty to avail
myself of his suggestions. He is more of a cynic
than myself; and indeed, he is so harsh at times,
that I shall feel bound to temper his youthful extravagances,
by the coolness and sobriety of my
superior years.
This acquaintance, whom I shall call at his own
suggestion, Tophanes, being an abbreviation of the
old Greek Aristophanes, is a shrewd observer of
some eight-and-twenty, well made, of cheerful temperament,
city-bred, and has been these four or five
years living on the town—by which I mean, that
with no ostensible employment, he has yet various
occupations, and the best of all professions, for a
town-liver—that of passing time agreeably.
He may be frequently seen in an arm-chair, at
the head of one of the tables in the reading-room of
the Society Library; but I have observed, that while
seeming to read, his eye is running over the groups
that come every morning to devour the newspapers,
and he is summing up in his own mind an estimate
of the various characters which make up the company.
He follows the same habit in the street, and
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will watch passers-by, with the careless way of the
world, while not an action, or movement will escape
his observation. He can tell the daintiness of every
lady's waist that he passes, and can furnish a critique
upon every bonnet and its trimmings. He
knows the name of every belle, and how long she
has been upon the town; he has always at hand a
description of the peculiar charms of each, whether
they lie in figure, in step, in eye, in color, or in
money. He can tell to a nicety, by a glance at
any one of our ball-room beauties, whether she be
fanée, blasée, or passée; he has even, in his time,
kept a little note-book, in which he has entered the
names of the prominent belles of the day, arranged
under various headings, such as—
First Class Belles,
Watering-place Belles,
Second-rate Belles,
New Brighton Belles,
Traveled Belles,
Belles Accessible,
Doubtful Belles,
Stout Belles, and
Eccentric Belles.
Against these, in the true spirit of the Baconian
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philosophy, he has entered sundry figures and calculations,—
made estimates in a column at the side of
the page, and occasionally enlivened the inventory
with pleasant descriptive paragraphs, and has even
given at length the distinguishing characteristics of
each species of belle. You will surely agree with
me that he is an auxiliary worth having; and when
I get upon the topic, I shall very likely make free
use of his observations.
His advice to me was most characteristic; nor
do I reckon it without value.
“My dear fellow,” said he, taking up the yellow
pamphlet in his hand, “you are too dainty; you
are shy of the mark; you are staving off the very
matter which you ought to souse into at once. Set
yourself at work upon the elements of our town-society;
entangle them, test them, paint them.
Dip into this strange Opera-going business, and the
puerilities of the coxcomb life. Dish up the Polka
for a dinner, and give us bon-bons for dessert. As
for the church, the books, and the politicians, they
will all come in good time.
“Do you think,” said he, turning upon me suddenly,
“that you could cultivate a moustache?”
“And why?” said I, stroking my lip and chin.
“Simply because it might be worth a thousand
a-year to you, saying nothing of a reversion.”
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This was a new idea to me, Fritz; you know
that in my day, I have worn hair enough upon my
face to hide my blushes, even beside the Governor
of Comorn, or the prettiest artist of the town. But
all this I set down to youthful exuberance, and the
careless habit of travel; I thought it a duty to my
Christian brotherhood, to wear now, in the calm
and quiet of life, at least, a Christian physiognomy.
Tophanes explained the matter to me, thus:
“My dear fellow,” said he, assuming the air of
a patron, “you must see a little more of town life
than will come under your eye in these retired
quarters; your name is not particularly tonnish,
though it has fortunately a slight foreign air (my
great-grandfather, from whom I inherited it, was
a Fleming); you don't keep a `drag' or a `milord;
' your seat at the Opera is an humble one;
you are not even boarder at the New-York Hotel;
you have not the entrée at Madame—, (naming
a leader of the exquisite ton); you are a little
passé; you have nothing particularly distingué in
your air; your dress is country made; you have
not, that I know of, been guilty of any little pretty
pardonable crimes against society; you have not
fought a duel, except a sham one, with broad-swords,
behind the old ruin at Heidelberg; you can't very
well, at your time of life, get credit for a liason
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with one of the Opera troupe,—so, my dear fellow,
there is no hope for you, but—a moustache!”
I saw at once the justice of his observations, and
determined to consider the matter. I wished, however,
first to look about me, and see what manner of
men were wearing these very essential appendages,
and when my observation shall be complete,—of
which, my dear Fritz, you shall have a full report,—
I will tell you plainly what decision the circumstances
force upon me. Meantime, with the aid of
my friend Tophanes (with whom we will smoke a
pipe together on your first visit), I give you this
little sketch of the city growth of a fashionable
man.
Homunculus.
—Passim.
You know him first at an age varying from fifteen
to twenty, by his very prim, square shirt collar,—by
a speckled Joinville tie, a very large-bottomed pantalon,
a boot that must pinch him execrably, and a
hat set the slightest possible bit on one side of his
head. He usually walks Broadway, at this stage
of incipiency, arm-in-arm with a companion, for
he has seen cuts of this mode of procedure, in the
high-life illustrations to Dickens' works; and he
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may sometimes be seen swaggering with a very
bold air, and very flat cigar, out of such corner
oyster shops as those of Florence, or Sherwood. At
this age, too, he talks in a very glib style of the ladies,—
their dress and tournure;—he mentions
very familiarly by their first names, certain dashing
specimens who ride in hackney cabs, and who
walk always unattended; and he affects punches,
made very strong. He boldly tips the wink to the
bar-maid, at such genteel places as the Madison
House—sips, and pulls up his shirt collars with a
jaunty air, and sometimes will sit down to a quiet
rubber of whist, in the back parlor.
His mamma, who wishes to restrain his out of door
indulgences, by breeding in him a love for polished
society, invites ladies of undoubted respectability
to her house, and our young master of the Joinville
tie commences early practice of the gallantries
of the drawing-room. His dancing education
is not neglected, and he soon gets a name with the
visiting ladies, for a very pleasant handling of their
forms in the Redowa. He cultivates assiduously
some elder acquaintance at the New-York Club, so
that his card and address come to be familiarly
known to the purveyor of the establishment, and
will get by merest accident upon such lady's lists,
as are made up from the club roll.
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Our hero patronizes (that is his word) a fashionable
tailor, and sets off a coat, by dint of slight
wadding, capitally well. His etiquette in the
dressing-room at the balls, is highly careless; and
he draws on his gloves, and adjusts his hair after
the last patterns of established town gentlemen. If
no prominent fashionable scion be found in the
dressing-room, he assumes quite an air, and talks
in very gay humor, and with dashing familiarity
of the ladies below; but if he espies an old Nestor
of the balls, he shrinks into comparative quietude,
and carefully observes the action and deportment of
his senior.
His dancing is easy and piquant, and he finds
without difficulty dashing lady partners, who grown
a little anxious on the score of their own age, are
very willing to commute the stock of years, by
balancing the Polka with a boy.
His talk is necessarily somewhat juvenile; but
he has a carefully prepared round of critiques on
Bertucca and Forti, picked up at the clubs; and
on weather topics, he manifests an insouciance and
freedom, that show him to be a perfect master of
the subject. He sometimes even ventures upon
the fine arts, and has cultivated certain ecstasies of
expression about the Greek Slave, and such like
measures of the town taste, which would be worthy of
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an established belle, or the columns of the Sunday
Mercury.
Oldish men, and such ladies as have rather an
unfortunate reputation for good sense, set off with
a spice of satire, he is careful to avoid; he sneers
at their ill-nature, only because their irony is too
strong for his brain.
With his fellows, perhaps he will affect a sporting
turn; he will read very assiduously the Spirit
of the Times,—he will have a shooting jacket made
with a world of pockets, and will sometimes take
it with him, on a trip to a summer watering-place;
but only wears it occasionally of a morning, when he
is sure no sportsmen are by; he will stuff a pocket with
pressed Regalias, and regret that game is so scarce.
He talks in very knowing tones of quail and partridge,
of Grenough guns and Frank Forrester,
and is supplied with all the sporting on dits. He
discourses too about trout-fishing, and Alfred's
tackle, very much as one of the falsettos in the
Papal choir, might talk of deeds of gallantry.
In time, he may come to have a small purplish
gathering of hair upon the upper lip, and he consults
Cristadoro on the prospects of a full-fledged
moustache. Meantime he is rapidly pushing his
ventures in the fashionable world; he may even
boast of a speaking acquaintance with some one of
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the Opera troupe of ladies, which he mentions to
his friends with a sly leer, as if something were in
the wind.
He discards, as he gets on, his Joinville tie; he
observes closely the air of foreign gentlemen at
the New-York Hotel, and will presently appear in
a stout, heavy “coachman,” with huge pearl buttons.
He is apt, at this stage, to invite some French
gentleman who is living on the town, to a dinner
at Delmonicos; and if he can push this venture
into a decided familiarity with the foreign representative
of manners, he feels himself a made
man.
If a literary fancy seizes him, he will cultivate
the acquaintance of the musical critics of the newspapers;
he accosts them familiarly (when no ladies are
in sight) in the corridors of the Opera-house, and will
perhaps contribute a letter to the Sunday Herald, or a
rejected sonnet to the Evening Mirror. His reading
will be variously the Home Journal, the Dispatch,
and “all sorts of paragraphs” of the Evening
Post; and when he feels braced for really serious
work, he will perhaps undertake “a card” in
the Courier and Enquirer, a review in the Literary
World, a poem in the Tribune, or a chapter in
“James' last Novel.”
Provided with such stock of litorary matter as
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this general reading furnishes, he quite astounds
the young ladies, who, though very good dancers,
do not pretend to be deep; and who smile the prettiest
coquetry back, at all his literary disquisitions,
disclaiming earnestly the name of blues. He will,
however, be rewarded by the very warm looks of
book-loving spinsters, and perhaps be invited to a
conversazione, where if he have a good tongue, and
a few tricks of the players, he may establish a tender
reputation by a triumphant reading of Romeo
and Juliet.
As he grows older, he discards such follies as unworthy
the dignity of a man of ton, and as entirely
useless in the art of salon conquest. If his means
will allow the venture, he will perhaps occasionally
drive a showy horse, in very dainty harness, along
the Bloomingdale road. At the Opera, he will be
provided with a very huge Lorgnette of ebony, or
imitation, and will direct it with the coolest composure
into a lady's face of the next box; and he
will never forget to break out into a rapturous bravo,
when a tall critic in the parquette, or Madame—
gives the concerted signal for applause. And
if one of the troupe appears in unreasonably short
petticoats, he is sure to level his glass at her, with
a most obstinate gaze, and crack some very touching
jokes, which make the lady he is with, blush to
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her eyes—unless indeed, she is lately returned from
“abroad,” and is gazing as earnestly as he,
sighing at the prurient modesty of American women.
In this last case indeed, she will have the
advantage of him in audacity, and will talk as
coolly of the shape of Signora's legs, as if it were
the daintiest imaginable topic for a quiet breakfast
chat.
And our hero gains from such encouragement,
at the hands of one who has formed her taste for
morals, and her moral of taste, at Paris, a new step
in his life of fashion; and at his next soirée, he
will repeat the ladies compliments of Signora, until
his dancing partner blushes again. He is now
arrived at a ripe stage; and if Mesdames So-and-so
do not invite him to their balls, it is because they
do not know that a most agreeable talent for ready
and piquant conversation, has been added to his
graceful accomplishment in the waltz. He now
assumes patronizing airs toward the younger members
of his class, and condescendingly offers to present
them at the reception of his lady friends.
A little of the reputation of the roué, will at this
stage add an agreeable spice to his character; and
an intrigue, coyly hinted at, with some married
lady, and offering topic for luxurious chit-chat in
fashionable boudoirs, will be very sure to give him
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[figure description] Page 035.[end figure description]
the entrée to the houses of such “leaders of the ton”
as have hitherto smiled contemptuously at his
pretensions. Old ladies of fashion, grown fat on
drawing-room applause, and luxurious riding, will
taste with as much relish as a dish of game, grown
rank, the luscious flattery dropping from the lips of
a man who has so successfully won his honors.
Now he may count securely on being made manager
of watering-place balls, and will be beset by
mothers of doubtful position, to take pity on their
daughters. He is looked up to by all barbers and
head-waiters, as a man of immense consideration;
and he will walk Broadway with the air of one who
feels that little remains to be learned, and that his
character is beyond criticism. He is a club-man;
and if his cards are well played, and a lofty ambition
spurs him on, he may have the honor of figuring
in the newspapers as one of a committee to give
a public dinner, or to aid in a city reception, or to
do honor to a distinguished ballet-dancer.
Higher than this, it is hardly possible for the man
of fashion to go. He is now become the Achilles of
the street, and the Apollo of the boudoir. If his
funds diminish, or his coiffeur hints at need of a
hair dye, he turns his thoughts to marriage; and
presently all the ladies of a certain age are bewitched
to secure him. Not because he has
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fortune, or much mental calibre, or because he is a man
to turn the world upside down, or to make a figure
on the Exchange, or in the courts, or because possessed
of any really intrinsic grace of character,—
but then he is such a charming man,—so very
agreeable,—such a funny man,—so elegant,—with
such handsome eyes,—or such a moustache,—and
then he polks so prettily,—in short, he is such a
dear love of a man!
And as for the stories about him and Madame
So-and-So, there can surely be nothing in them; he
is so audible in his responses at Grace Church, and
such a friend of Doctor —; it must be all envy;
but perhaps Madame So-and-So courted him; and
then he is so kind; and even if he did, how penitent
he must be; and what a delightful thing to
win him back to the paths of virtue! And the fair
apologist, very strong in her love of mercy and
purity, and shedding religious tears of hope, throws
herself back upon her luxurious lounge, and gets a
new lesson of Christian charity and morals, out of
that dear Catholic story of the Lady Alice!
But the Papa has perhaps in this arrangement, a
keener eye to prudence, than to piety. He is very
earnest in his inquiries about stocks, and expectations;
and is anxious to know of what timber the
fashionable man may be built. A moustache,
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[figure description] Page 037.[end figure description]
though a very good recommendation to my lady's
boudoir, or balls, is not, he shrewdly thinks, so taking
on exchange; nor is it altogether the readiest
passport to the confidence and inveiglement of such
clients as manifest a decided wish that their business
should have attention. White kids appear
very prettily in the handling of a Lorgnette, but
they must be cast to manage the execution of a
deed, or to draft a bill of exchange. The pretty
babble about the Dusseldorf, or the tenor of Forti,
may do very well to win a weak lady, but it will
not have very great weight with a jury. Our man
of fashion has then one position up-town, and quite
another in Wall street: among the women, he
passes for a man; and among the men, he passes
for a woman.
If in this emergency of his life, his funds absolutely
fail, he may possibly find friends, who for
the credit of the family, will subscribe for him an
annuity, payable until he shall secure an heiress.
He is now obliged to cut his old acquaintances of
the Opera troupe, and hushes up his reputation for
intrigue, except so much as shall find its way by
friendly lips, to the ears of his victim. For in this
quarter, no acquaintance can do him worse service,
than by sneering at his past gallantries, as sheer
affectations; and he may safely say with the lover,
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[figure description] Page 038.[end figure description]
in the French Comedy: Je ne demandais pas à
étre mauvais sujet; mais, maintenant que c'est
reconnu et établi, il ne faut rien dire! Car en
m'ôtant mes torts, on m'ôterais tous mes avantages.
However, he is regular at church, and affects
thoughtfulness, for he is put perhaps, by some
form-loving mamma, upon probation.
What a changed man!—whispers the delighted
Fredonia; and presently, from a rake, our fashionable
man has become a husband. He has married
a plump five thousand a-year, a delicate complexion,
a great deal of whalebone and bustle, a smattering
of French talk, whole reams of poetic sentiment,
and an incalculable quantity of new novels.
He can now take a box at the Opera, and ride to
Grace Church; he can wink at the sexton, shake
hands with the parson, and utter his responses as
audibly as he chooses. He cuts his poor acquaintances
of the club, and doesn't let his country cousins
know his town address. He drops pennies
into the parish box, wrapped in dingy brown paper,
which resembles old bank bills, and passes with
pious, middle-aged ladies, for a worthy and charitable
Christian. He gives parties, but he does not
pay his grocer's bill.
His wife has expectations, and he takes her rheumatic
uncle out to ride, and presses upon him his
-- 039 --
[figure description] Page 039.[end figure description]
poor cigars, and is very urgent that he should come
to dine with him, when he knows him to be laid up
with an attack of the gout. He sends bouquets,
and valentines, anonymously, but in his own hand-writing,
to his wife's rich aunt. He employs a
fashionable physician, and doesn't venture into Wall
street. He goes to play billiards at the club, and
tells his wife he has business with his lawyer. He
goes to parties, and waltzes with the youngest girls
in the room. He figures on committees for public
balls, and wears white rosette; he consults his
wife's complexion in the purchase of dress, and drapery,
and has long and serious interviews with his
tailor. He subscribes to a morning and evening
paper, and to the Home Journal; and he has his
arms cut upon a signet ring. He reads general
news in de Trobriand's Revue, and the religious
news, in the directions for church service, of the
prayer-book.
He talks with his clergyman about church architecture,—
with his lawyer about marriage settlements,—
with his wife about the last party, and
with his lady friends about velvet cloaks, and the
new third fiddler of the orchestra.
At this stage, he may be reckoned firmly and
fairly a leader of the ton; and he has only to show
himself liberal, to have his name heralded, or his
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likeness cut for the Sunday Mercury; and very
especial services may secure to him the honor of a
statuette in the shop windows of the town.
His moneyed character is of course understood
to be beyond impeachment; or if some unfortunate
developments of an irksomely keen morning
paper, should make his name and note discredited
on 'Change, he has only to appear in a dignified,
exculpatory card, drafted by his lawyer,—to withdraw
his funds at the bank,—make over the result
of a few private transactions to his wife,—contract
a few debts of honor, from such friends as will not
bother him for pay, and live upon his wife's charity,—
another gorgeous, and dinner-loving martyr
to town speculation, and to bitter tongues.
This, as I am assured by my friend Tophanes, is
a fair representation of the usual growth; but the
exceptions are very various, and the grades of fashionable
men are very numerous. There are, for
instance,—the fashionable beaux, the fashionable
street-men, the fashionable authors, the fashionable
roués, the fashionable merchants, the fashionable
respectables, the fashionable defaulters, the fashionable
grocers, and the fashionable doctors. And
when I come to detail their characteristics at
length, they will, I am sure, my dear Fritz, amuse
you wonderfully.
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[figure description] Page 041.[end figure description]
I shall not venture to give you thus early any
sketch of the fashionable development in the women;
for since it is a more delicate matter, I
must make my observation a little finer, and have
a few more quiet talks with my old lady friend,
who as I told you, sometimes indulges me with a
ride in her britska. And I may further say, that
any advices in regard to this topic, from genteel
young women, of good taste and connections, will
be very gladly received. My friend Tophanes, who
is an up-town liver, has kindly volunteered to take
charge of any such communications as may be left
for John Timon, at the counter of Henry Kernot,
bookseller. He has, moreover, tendered his services
to make personal calls, between the hours of
twelve and three, upon such ladies as have anything
of a special nature to communicate. (Tophanes
moves in “top society,” and he will engage
to call, in blue coat with brass buttons, yellow
gloves, and a jaunty-looking hack; and if desired,
the coachman will wear a gilt band around his
hat.)
I am determined to spare no pains to make my
portraits of town life, true to the spirit of the times;
so that any future historian of our social growth,
may find in these humble papers, the material
suited to his purpose.
Timon.
-- --
[figure description] Blank Page.[end figure description]
-- --
FEB. 7. NEW-YORK. NO. 3.
“It is the same vanity, the same folly, and the same vice, only appearing
different, as viewed through the glass of fashion. In a word, all
mankind are a —.”
Goldsmith.
[figure description] Page 043.[end figure description]
You will be amused to learn, my dear Fritz,
that a city paper has set you down as a respectable
maiden aunt of a certain poor literary jobber, to
whom has been ascribed the authorship of these
papers. I do not doubt but that you would become
the petticoats as well as any Catholic Sister of the
“People I have met;” still I feel bound to enter a
caveat against such wanton and gratuitous metamorphose
of your dignity and sex.
As for the alleged authorship,—notwithstanding
the allegation is supported by “undoubted
signs,”—I have only to say that the editors must
-- 044 --
[figure description] Page 044.[end figure description]
set their wits at work anew. It is certainly not a
little singular, that after having plainly told the
public, that my name was wholly unknown, gentlemen
should persist in ascribing the work to
persons of acknowledged experience. Will not the
dear Critics believe, that a plain and simple observer
may use a pen with some little adroitness, although
he has not dipped into the muddy Bethesda of
city literature? May not a man speak out honestly
his sentiments, and detail the pleasant passages of
his town-life, without being set down as one of the
old brood of inordinate and pretentious scribblers?
Is there anything in the nature of the thing, that
forbids the propriety, or the truth of my claim?
Will not the kind gentlemen—the bell-wethers of
the sheep-flock—who have in their keeping the
literary interests of the town, suffer a quiet fellow
to have a word for himself, but they must forthwith
credit his speculations to some of their own
kith and kin?
As for the honor they do me, deeply sensible as I
am of its importance, I must yet entreat their forbearance
in the bestowal; it hurts my modesty, to
say nothing of my character.
It seems that not a few curious smelfungi, misled,
perhaps, by the taking figure of the cover, have
anticipated in the Lorgnette a sort of duodecimo
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[figure description] Page 045.[end figure description]
Judy, with its grinning conceits; they are as
much mistaken as if they were to look for classic
acting at the Broadway Theatre, or for a conscience
among the City Fathers. Those earnest for such
funny delicacies, I would commend to the Chatham
Theatre, an old file of Yankee Doodle, and a pewter
mug of ale; and with these helps, I feel quite sure
that they may turn them out, as plentifully, and of
as good quality, as any at the bar of the Jefferson
Lunch, or among the city items of the Commercial.
“If you wish to make people stare by doing better than others, why
make them stare till they stare their eyes out?”
—Johnson.
I should give you a poor idea, Fritz, of the
winter life in town, if I did not keep you advised
from week to week of the celebrities of the time;
yet they come up so fast, that it will be very hard
to tell how they gain such character, and harder
still, to tell how they lose it. But we are a quick-working
people, and do these things at very short
order; while, you know, in the old states of
Europe, it takes a long time for either man,
woman, or child, to become any way famous. There
the most extraordinary men may move about without
a procession of gapers; and a Lolah Montes may
-- 046 --
[figure description] Page 046.[end figure description]
take her dish of coffee at a public table, without so
much as a single man being choked with his roll
at the sight.
This is not the way we do things in our town.
Nothing out of the common course can happen but
there arises a tremendous buzz, which carries knowledge
of it to all the salons of the town, and to
every loge of the Opera. Not a man above the
capacity of country Judge, or skipper of a coasting
schooner, can arrive upon the island, but he is announced
in the gossiping papers under the head of
personal movements; and I do not believe that a
man could kiss his wife in the street without its
forming a nucleus for a “mysterious circumstance”
in an evening journal, or that a lady could rupture
her lacings, without its being chronicled in the
Express, under head of “Casualties.”
The ingenious de Tocqueville would have found
a reason for this itch of multiplying the marvelous,
in the character of our institutions, and in the
absence, throughout our social system, of all established
and time-honored celebrities. We must have
something near us to wonder at and admire, and
if the State does not give us the means, why our
own fancies will. Hence it is that mountebanks
of all classes and characteristics, are passing before
us, and growing in a breath into celebrities.
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Tophanes, who is au courant of such matters,
has frequently diverted me, by pointing out, upon
the street, the lions of the day. There, for instance,—
he will tell me,—goes a woman who is
well known for having the prettiest ankles in the
town, and who is remarkable for a partiality to
damp pavements. Another is known for her
artistic arrangement of dress, and has even been
honored, under a feigned name, with a complimentary
paragraph, under head of “things talked
of” in the Home Journal. A third has given a
magnificent ball, with which the town talk, from
that of the prim nieces in the attic, to that of a distinguished
French reviewer, has been busy for a
week. Mention in the last-named quarter has, of
course, established reputation beyond all attempt
at cavil.
A fourth, who is a prim gentleman in very shaggy
coat, is pointed out to you as the hero of every
salon; and if he but add to this claim a certain
celebrity in the Rackett court, or the authorship of
a few sonnets, he will be gazed at admiringly by
all the young ladies upon town. A fifth, is a millionaire,
or son of a millionaire, who has a hundred
sly fingers and beaming eyes directed toward him,
whenever he shows himself upon the walk. A
sixth, will be named and noted as the hero of some
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little piquant intrigue, which the dear ladies name
always with a Christian shudder, and such fond
sigh of regret as might win a Joseph. Another, is
some blooming author, or artist, who, by dint of
newspaper mention, has grown Raphaelesque in
celebrity, and who wears his honors like a mountain.
I do not mean to say, Fritz, that these are
characters whose fame has reached you, for their
celebrity, unfortunately, blossoms and fades within
the limits of the city. If they were to migrate,
they might become lions in small country towns
for a season; but it is to be feared, that without the
ambrosia of town Deism, they would soon sink to
the level of ordinary men.
Indeed, so determined is the disposition to build
up easy celebrities, that I have had my fears, lest
some of the paper limners, who are the most prying,
inquisitive fellows you can imagine—should get
wind of my box at the Opera, since I am a stranger,
and very indefatigable with my glass—and serve
me up in a paragraph under some such dainty
head as “Riff Raff,” or “Floatings By.” Indeed,
what with my rustic air, huge lorgnette, and bald
head, I think I should cut rather a pretty figure
in a statuette. And if Heaven were to spread before
me the snare of a town marriage, I should
expect to find all my better feelings harrowed up
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by some such announcement as this:—“We understand
that a buxom old country gentleman, Mr.
John Timon, led yesterday to the altar the young
and blooming Miss Euphemia Trymen. The ceremony
was performed in Grace Church, and the
powerful and sonorous voice of the distinguished
Doctor added powerfully to the interest of the stirring
occasion. Several carriages were in attendance,
among which we noticed a few of the tasteful
equipages of our leaders of fashion.”
Foreigners in general may, so far as I have observed,
be reckoned among the town celebrities.
A German, with his guttural sounds, and with his
taste in music, which, by dint of foreign terms, can
be very well assumed, is almost certain of being
hunted down, and bagged by all the good-natured
celebrity mongers. And if he can scrape a fiddle
daintily, or talk, with his eyes rolling to heaven,
about Goethe, or cultivate a Faust intensity of look,
he will be in demand all over the town by German
loving young ladies,—and all this, notwithstanding
he may drink all the small beer in the world,
or smoke the filthiest of Meerschaums. It is of
but little account what name or position he may
have held in the Fatherland: we democratize with
a vengeance, where a distingué, sandy whisker is
in the case; and our autocrats can open their doors
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to the veriest valet, if his lingual acquirements
and naïve foreign air will but make him a taking
card in the salon.
As for the Frenchman, though now between the
valorous Poussin and the long-faced Bonaparte, a
little under the weather, yet a good polka education,
delicate perfumes well laid on, and a roundlyuttered
“superbe,” and “magnifique,” in a lady's
ear, will do for him vast execution. And as for a
genuine Cockney, in exceedingly sharp shirt collars,
straight-brimmed hat, and plaid tights, who mouths
his words, and says,—“I de-say,” and “it's very
odd,” and “nice person,” and who talks easily about
“Victy,” and the “Duke,”—he will bewitch half the
women of the town. And if he can manage to drop
a compliment, not too clumsily contrived, into the
ear of some respectable, established lady, who doats
upon herself, her suppers, and her equipage, he will
be heralded presently in the town gossip, as a “distinguished
son of Albion,” with supposed acquirements
enough to make him a ten days' wonder. Of
course, if a shrewd fellow, his acquaintance at
home will be all be-duked, and be-duchessed, and
he will prove a rare trump for such ladies as turn
up their noses at “money,” and who have a keen
scent for “blood.”
But all these have latterly been cast in the shade
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by the Hungarian exiles; among which were the
valiant little Demoiselle Jagello, and Governor Ujhazy,
whose names the whole town has learned to
pronounce, by aid of the philological developments
of a morning paper. Now nothing in the world is
more proper than to welcome these poor fellows;
and nothing more generous than Stetson's kind
bounty in giving them a home. But they have
been fêted, and visited; and the stout little curmudgeon
of a Governor drugged with dinners, and
Mademoiselle tolled out to town balls; and important
committees have been busy making up for us
a set of celebrities as large as the Mexican conquerors.
They have been sent for to make a house
at the Opera, and have proved grand capital, not
only for Senator Seward, but for aspiring ladies
who give thin soirées. Would it not be well for
them to secure, as standard lions for the season, a
score or two of those who are now on their way
from Hamburg?
Now if the Governor, who is a stern old countryman,
with a long grizzled beard like a Hebrew,
would take honest advice, I would caution him
against celebrity mongers, and urge upon him a quiet
life, and a careful look-out for his estates at home;
which, if they pass from him in the lion's division
of the spoil, he had better renew somewhere in the
-- 052 --
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West, and bend that sturdy back of his to work upon
American soil, and that brave soul to the appreciation
and advancement of the American State.
As for Mademoiselle, who is a brisk, snug-built,
dark-eyed little maid, they have made all manner
of paragraphs about her shape, her tears, and
her war-dress—in short, they have married her to
town celebrity; and though it is a far better
match for her, than if she had married the best of
the celebrity mongers, yet it will make for her an
unquiet home, and will give her but flimsy altargods
for her hearth-stone.
Another poor victim they have tried to make of
a splendid violinist, ushered in by a blast of town
trumpets, and the taking announcement of a
weekly journal that he was a “handsome young fellow.”
The town ladies were naturally bewitched to
see the charming Remeyni, who, though scarce out of
his teens, had the sense to perceive the lure, and
as Tophanes informs me, has escaped the martyrdom.
But the Hungarian fever, thanks to the stupidity
of that lover of monarchs and the London Times—
Mr. Bowen, has become almost chronic; and we
hear of respectable young men and women, sane on
other matters, who have actually taken to study of
the Magyar dialect, and talk of some such
-- 053 --
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redeeming pilgrimages to the banks of the Danube, as
crazy Southey once plotted to the wilds of Missouri.
In all the bals costumés the Hungarian costume
is just now carrying the day, even against a
Buena Vista hussar coat, or the lace trimmings of
a Debardeur. Street mountebanks are wearing
Hungarian caps; the Hungarian balsam is in new
demand; and Miss Lawson (Tophanes is my authority),
who divides, with the Home Journal, the
honors of being Pythoness of modes, is about to offer
to the enchanted town a Jagello hat! The next
step will be a Weehazy polka, and a Weehazy beard,
which, if they be duly chronicled in the Express,
and countenanced by her Grace, Madame J—.
and deftly dished into an oily paragraph, by the
Journal that dishes such things so well, will become
the established order of the city.
As for native growth, now that the Mexican war
is fairly over (which, as I am told, crowded the town
with heroes), the ways of achieving a really available
celebrity are reducible to some one of these:—
by getting, or seeming to get, inordinately rich; by
giving a ball so splendid that it shall not lack notice
even in the staid columns of a Revue; by writing
a stupid book (if I said letters, you might condemn
me for an aspirant!); by newspaper mention
under head of “Personal Movements,” or the
-- 054 --
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committal of some extraordinary absurdity; by defaulting
to the tune of some really clever sum; by making
a dinner speech, or getting drunk at the balls;
by running away with an heiress, or arriving as
“bearer of dispatches;” and finally, by being candidate
for, or recipient of a public office.
There are many of them so important as to be
worthy of a separate paper; and I shall go on now
to note only the casual and accidental celebrities
which have fallen under notice.
An Opera ball, one of which has lately miscarried,
owing to an unfortunate clash of jealousies,
might be made, by a little dexterous management,
a thorough celebrity. I have the authority of my
neighbor, the tasteful gentleman, for saying that
the only one of the winter was quite recherché; and
he has kindly offered to interest himself with the
managers, for securing me a ticket to such others
as may be in store. He tells me that it is strictly
understood between Mr. Maretzek and the tasteful
managers, that no parvenus are to be admitted;
and as I am quite anxious to see the pure ton sifted
of all riff-raff, parvenu rubbish, I shall certainly
avail myself of his kindness. It is true I have
had my misgivings about his own title to the
floor; but it appears that he is intimate with
the chief of the orchestra, and has performed
-- 055 --
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some private service of a delicate nature, for a
gentleman prominent on the committee; moreover,
he wears a very respectable moustache, a
jaunty-setting blue coat with brass buttons, and
an air of easy indifference, so that he passes
without challenge.
Some of the “old families,” as he calls them, have
turned up their noses at these public balls; but he
hints that it is out of sheer jealousy, and that they
are fast being overtopped by the ton of the Opera-house.
And he went on to say, that the manners of
such were altogether rusty and stiff, not brilliant
enough for the times, and that they must soon sink
into oblivion. I am inclined to think that he is
more than half correct; and if the old Dutchmen
do not take warning—add a new cape to their coachmen's
coat, trick out their daughters in more dashing
cloaks, buy a seat at Grace Church, (though
Dutch Reform stock may rise a little with the cross
of the Fifth Avenue Meeting-House,) abuse Forti,
subscribe to de Trobriand's Revue, and the Lorgnette,
they will be very sure to lose caste.
There are not a few diminutive celebrities of the
balls—people who get a name for constant attendance,
or for a particular dance; and I remember
quite a young gentleman with a little down upon
his lip, carefully turned up at the ends, who was
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pointed out by my friend Tophanes, as an extraordinary
prodigy in this last way. He seemed to have
a due sense of his lion state, albeit his mane was
not of very robust growth, and seemed as thoroughly
satisfied with his celebrity, as if it had been gained
by the invention of a steam-engine, or a patent
elastic boot shank.
I don't mean, dear Fritz, to affect the cynic, in
making invidious comparisons, and by throwing
ridicule on the favorites of the balls! Each phase of
life has its brilliancies, and each pursuit its celebrities;
and there is no reason in the world why
our heroes of the polka should not wear their honors
of the pump, as serenely, and gaily, as the first whip
at Astley's his success upon the box—as Celeste her
verdicts of applause at the Lyceum, or as our newfledged
writers their sprouting and hot-bed glories.
The lady celebrities of the ball-room are distinguishable
sometimes by gracefulness in the dance,
and sometimes by a most delectable familiarity.
Why, if our old flame Amy, of bal masqué memory,
were to cling to you in the waltz with such languishing
and tender air as belongs to some of
our salon dancers, you would find yourself doubting
if she were as honest as she seemed!
Only fancy to yourself, Fritz, a tall girl with
shoulders bare to the lower edge of decorum,—your
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arm clasped round her waist well bound up,—her
hand lying hard upon your shoulder, and her head
sometimes reposing on it, so that her head-dress
tickles your chin as you whirl in the dance, and a
round eye full of a luxurious languor looking up at
you from the faint head! To tell you the truth, it
would do honor to the Chaumière.
My old lady-friend the dowager explained this to
me, however, as a pleasant eccentricity of the dancer;
and supported her statement by pointing out
to me presently the same individual, in the act of
borrowing a gentleman's handkerchief to wipe the
perspiration from her neck! The town is certainly
on the gain in these matters; the old prurient modesty
of our day is gone by; and we may expect to
see, in a winter or two, some of these eccentric characters
appearing in satin breeches. Indeed, I would
by no means vouch for the fact, that they have not
enjoyed particular divertisements of the sort, before
a select company of gentlemen, already.
I cannot help noticing in this connection, though
they hardly rank among the celebrities, the great
number of small fry, who swarm at the balls. The
age of school-boys seems to have utterly gone by;
and you will find little witlings in straight sharp collars
talking robustly of polking, and balls, at an age
when, judging from their chin and brain, they
-- 058 --
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should be busy with their Latin readers and Columbian
class-books. And if you fall to talking with a
hoydenish miss, or decayed spinster, about Rossi, or
the new tenor, (for these are safe topics) you will
find yourself supplanted by some little beardless
fellow, who scarce comes up to your shoulder, and
who yet insists with all the gravity of a man, upon
the next polk, with your belle!
It used to be the order, that men should have the
gain of a year or two upon the ladies; but the order
seems now reversed, and a boy in his teens is reckoned
a fit partner for a woman of a score. Whether
the ladies have degenerated, or the youngsters
gained four years upon them in wit, since our
day, I have not yet observed enough to determine
correctly.
Another sort of celebrity at the balls is the dinerout,
who is heavy with Port and Champagne, and
stupified with a new lift at the punch-bowl. He quite
shocks sensitive girls by the boldness of his dance,
and thinks it a pretty play to reel like a Bacchante
through the waltz. In this matter, New-York
fashionables decidedly take the lead of the rest of
the civilized world; in most quarters such unfortunate
diners-out would be politely shown the door;
but it is by no means certain that here, it does not
add to a gentleman's attractions.
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Here and there you may meet with a traveled
lady who becomes a pretty subject for salon celebrity.
She wears an air of most captivating impudence,
and pronounces the names of a great many
foreign towns unexceptionably, even to the Gaelic
guttural in Munich. She wears gloves from Boivín's
in the Rue de la Paix, and hopes she shall never be
obliged to wear any others: she subscribes to the
Courrier des Etats-Unis, and criticises the American
translations of French authors. She drops her
cards about town, dating from the Rue Lavoisier,
or de Lille, and leaves a regret with the servant,
that she has no American cards about her. She
talks in a hurried, broken, epigrammatic way of
Paris shops and soirés,—assumes that air of easy
languor, which becomes the elegant faineant, weary
of admiration, and gives such interesting details of
city life abroad as dazzle her beardless devotees,
but which it is plain to see are picked up from
a gossiping French femme de chambre. It is wonderful
how much pretty talk of travel, and scandal
of Paris life, can be accumulated from the morning
chats with a little piquant grisette; and if any
ambitious conversationist is desirous of lighting up
her evenings with richer foreign tattle than can be
gathered from any “scissorings from foreign files,”
there could scarce be a happier method hit upon
-- 060 --
[figure description] Page 060.[end figure description]
than to import for private service, a middle-aged,
faded, Paris femme de chambre.
Our foreign celebrity criticises in ex cathedra
style the dresses of the town, and makes modest
young women, who are simply respectable, very
uneasy in their simplicity. If a friend questions
the propriety of certain extravagances of dress, she
meets it with an inimitable toss of the head, that
quite sets the matter at rest. Or if some prudent
old lady inveighs against a too lavish display of her
personal charms,—Pho! has she not seen the
dress of the Duchess of So and So, and shall she be
taught proprieties in our town?
A young gentleman of `parts,' and high respectability,
will be presented by some middle-aged
spinster as a gentleman recently returned from
abroad, and possibly a hint will be dropped about
superior acquirements, a German university, or a
finished education. At all which, the young gentleman
of `parts' adjusts his shirt collar, looks
down at his Paris boot, bows graciously, and thinks
“it is a fine day.” Or if last from England, he
coughs “ahem,” and says “aye,” in affirmation,—
clips his words very uncommonly short, and affects
a most extraordinary coolness, with which
the young ladies are delighted, and think “he is so
very gentlemanly.” He says that St. Paul's is
-- 061 --
[figure description] Page 061.[end figure description]
a fair sort of a church, and also Westminster Abbey,
in its way; and he thinks the Duke of Northumberland
has “rayther a clever 'ouse” at Charing
Cross, but he doesn't think his equipage is the
`thing.'
He intends “going over” again presently to hear
Jenny Lind, or to see Cerito. Of course he thinks
Truffi is very well in her way, but quite provincial—
quite! As for Paris, which he pronounces
inadvertently Paree, he was quite charmed with it—
quite; and he can give a very particular and
graphic description of the Hotel Meurice, and such
statistics about palaces and gardens, as he has
picked up from his valet de place, or Galignani's
Guide. Of course he became perfectly familiar
with French, and has a practical knowledge of
Italian and Spanish; though it seems to him a confounded
affectation to be using these unusual acquirements
in company; for his part, he could not
so far forget himself. He can tell some very rich
stories about brigands in Italy, which date about
the time of his visit.
For the matter of Art, he must confess with some
pain, that he has not been able to enter our small
collections since his return; but he hopes that after
a little further depletion of the foreign habit, he will
be sufficiently reduced to enjoy even the Art-Union.
-- 062 --
[figure description] Page 062.[end figure description]
Yet he would by no means sneer at our artists—he
would not be thought to do so; he thinks they need
encouragement, particularly that of men of taste
and travel.
He opens a conversation with a new acquaintance,
by observing, that upon the whole manners
are improving in this country; he sees marks of it,
he thinks, all about him,—particularly in the little
naked statuettes which he has met with in private
parlors; and he does sincerely hope that we shall
soon become thoroughly refined in such matters.
He doesn't know but the etiquette is as yet a little
provincial, but he kindly thinks that its taint will
wear off by degrees.
He talks about the London Times, and hopes he
shall not lose sight of it; he feels quite an interest
in some of the noble families; and says it was
rumored as he left town, that his acquaintance, the
son of the Marquis of So and So, was about to
marry the Honorable Juliana Titus.
Drop to him a remark about the weather, and he
says he quite likes it—quite the London air; he
passed last season in London, and asks if the
steamer has arrived. At the hotels he affects the
English manner with the waiters—calling them
all `John,' and the porter, `boots'; or he strikes his
tumbler with his fork, and calls out accidentally,
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Garcon! and will sometimes forget himself so far,
after dinner, as to call the stout Irish chambermaid—
mon petit chat!
He calls a hack-driver, cabman; and the omnibus
drivers, coachmen; he never says cents, but
pennies; and sometimes talks of ha'pennies, and
calls the Hudson, “Tems.” He talks about rectors,
and curates, and vicars, and good livings,
and says he quite unconsciously found himself
praying, the other Sunday, “for Her Most Gracious
Majesty, the Queen, and all the Royal Family!”
I fancy, Fritz, that you smile ironically at these
learned and accomplished graduates of foreign travel;
and your smiles are not ill-timed. And I am
half persuaded to cast aside reserve, and my quiet
habit of talk, to lash as they deserve these puerile
coxcombs, fed on their own vanity, and the tolerance
of the town. Yet there are plenty of weak ones—
not all of them weak from lack of years—who listen
with unction to such conceited babblers, and
who fructify this sort of celebrity, by renewing expressions
of applause, and studied smiles of adulation.
You are enough of an American, my dear Fritz,
though you have wintered in the snows of Petersbourg,
and lighted your spring with the delicious
glow of a Greek sun rising over the ægean, to wish
-- 064 --
[figure description] Page 064.[end figure description]
for something more earnest, strong, and manly in
American life, than will permit the every-day prostration
before the social Juggernaut of Europe!
When, in the name of Heaven, are we to have
an honest, simple, Republican basis for our socialities,
which shall not need, nor ask the meretricious
adornments of foreign style, and which shall reject
all miserable pilferers of those trappings which belong
to the lordly state of the Old World, as incapable
of manly intent, and a severe Republican
dignity?
The jackdaw may steal peacocks' feathers, but
they will not make him an eagle.
Timon.
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-- --
[figure description] Blank Page.[end figure description]
-- --
FEB. 14. NEW-YORK. NO. 4.
J'en fais un aven public; je me suis proposé que de representer, la vie
des hommes telle qu'elle est; a Dieu ne plaise que j'aie endessein de designer
quelqu'un en particulier!
—Le Sage.
[figure description] Page 065.[end figure description]
I am sorry, Fritz, that my letters to you, written
down in the humor of the moment, and containing
such observations upon town life and society,
as I thought would be agreeable to you to read,
should have provoked the condemnation of bearing
too great a severity of remark, and of wearing an
air of bitterness. I had hoped to be so far sustained
by sensible men and women, in ridicule of what all
must confess to be worthy of ridicule, as to escape
such reproof. You know me well enough, Fritz,
to be aware that it is not in my nature to dislike
for the sake of disliking, or to sneer, from a habit
of sneering.
-- --
[figure description] Page 066.[end figure description]
Is it true, that what all the world reproves in
talk, is not to be reproved in print? and that exceptions
which are taken every day to particular extravagances,
are no sooner made public, and reduced
to the point of words, than they change to
imputed slanders? I abjure this construction, and
the charges which it entails.
A lady of piquant talk will play off the shafts of
her wit upon ridiculous usages, but the moment
she sees the same invested with the dignity of type,
she must needs exclaim against the impropriety!
How in the world, then, are our manners to take
healthier forms, if their abuses are to grow up unnoticed
and unchecked?
Do not for a moment think, my dear Fritz, that
my reception in the town has been such as to sour
my temper, or to render my remarks the result of
an embittered and unworthy envy. There is not a
city in the world where a stranger is welcomed
with more hospitality, and where his short-comings
are treated with a more lenient hand; nor is there
another upon this side the Atlantic, where a man
can pursue the bent of his own inclinations, so little
subject to remark and observation. Nowhere
are the ladies more kind and conciliating; nowhere
are the men more obliging and courteous. But in
a new and growing society, where the old
-- 067 --
[figure description] Page 067.[end figure description]
elements are all the while blending into new combinations,
and where arbitrary distinctions are growing
up to stand in place of the fixed but factitious
ones of the European world, it is but natural that
abuses should creep into the body social, and the
gangrene of fashionable extravagance fester here
and there in the system. God forbid, that in applying
the caustic to the diseased parts, I should
be ignorant or insensible of the healthful and vigorous
action of what is sound and perfect!
But while I deeply regret the reproval of some, I
am proud of that so freely bestowed by others. I
did have a fear, that in proposing a series of observations
upon the fashionable life of the town, I
should in some measure seem to sympathize with
that class of persons who rail ignorantly and blindly
at whatever savors of wealth and respectability,
and who derive their spiritual nutriment from such
papers as the Sunday Courier. But by their most
welcome abuse, they have convinced me of my
error, and have relieved me of one of the worst embarrassments
which beset me. I cannot enough
thank such for their labor, and shall try hard to
merit a continuance of their censure; only regretting
that their capacities are unequal to the task of
rendering it as pointed and forcible as would be
wished.
-- 068 --
[figure description] Page 068.[end figure description]
Cy n'entrez pas mâchefains praticiens,
Clers, basauchiens, mangeurs du populaire,
Officiaux, scribes, et pharisiens,
Juges anciens, qui les bons parroiciens
Ainsi que chiens mettez au capulaire.
—Gargantua.
Liv. I. Cap. LIV.
Tophanes, who is something of a philosopher in
his way, as well as a wag, has arranged from his
note-book, what he calls a schedule of the prerequisites
to fashionable success. He has arranged it in
the pretentious manner of those public economists
and politicians who make a reputation by their synopses
and arrangement of figures. It certainly
has a business-like and authentic air; and though
I must confess to ignorance of its entire credibility,
as well as to sundry of its allusions, it shall
come in precisely as he has prepared it. Prerequisites:—
1st. Money,
Name,
Swagger.
2d. Person,
Impudence,
Mr. Browne.
3d. Display,
Music,
A Coach.
4th. Parties,
Politics,
Invention.
5th. Literature,
Moustache,
Taste.
6th. Religion,
Propriety,
Honesty.
7th. Good-Nature,
Modesty,
Indifference.
-- 069 --
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Following out his analytical arrangement, Tophanes
has written against each item of his schedule
the names of such as have gained, or still
maintain position, by possession of the prerequisite
with which they stand credited. But since I have
taken Heaven to witness, in the name of old Le
Sage, that I have no personal intent, the names
must be suppressed.
But although these are noted as the prerequisites,
they are not always the absolute causes of success;
and I am assured that not a few with unbounded
means, either from lack of name, or too great impudence—
or, what amounts to the same, too great
modesty—are reckoned quite upon the outskirts of
society. Others again, with abundance of swagger,
yet from a want of either money or music, are
in an almost hopeless state of exile. Still others,
possessing creditable names, are so unfortunately
addicted to propriety or religion, as to render them
utter outcasts. Even Literature, as Tophanes informs
me, without the aid of a moustache, or Mr.
Browne (who I suppose to be a writer for the Literary
World), is a mere nullity; and many a poor
poetaster, in sheer ignorance of Derby and Martell,
has uttered lamentable Jeremiads over his fallen
state, and hung his harp upon the willows. Religion
of itself is not altogether hopeless, provided it be
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of a striking and brilliant sort—well spiced up with
startling doctrines, which are altogether in advance
of the old hum-drum order. Thus, a bishop who has
a leaning toward the worship of the Virgin, or a
layman who is strictly tractarian, or a lady who
inclines to private confession and rosaries, or a
trinitarian who verges upon the unity, or a papist
who curses the Pope, are all in a fair way to make
their profession brilliant.
Taste will do very well, but must be properly
guided; and I am assured, that several interesting,
and well-intentioned young men have ruined their
prospects by too great independence in this matter.
It is by no means worth while to express an opinion
about a new opera, or a new picture, before
ascertaining the views entertained by the Home
Journal, De Trobriand's Revue, or the Courier and
Enquirer; and if these could be confirmed by the
opinion of a `distinguished leader of the ton,' the
sooner they are promulgated the better for a man's
reputation. As for expressing a contrary opinion,
none venture upon it, except a few stupid fogees,
who frequent the Society Library, and who read
the London Athenæum.
So with regard to etiquette, and the parure of
balls; nothing would be more fatal, Tophanes tells
me, than for a simple-minded young man to
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advance observations upon these subjects, which
would militate against those entertained by a
`French nobleman,' or Martell.
Taste, upon the whole, appears to be rather a
dangerous element in the character of an aspirant;
and if it be rude—that is to say, cultivated under
such old-fashioned teachers as Burke, Alison, and
Reynolds, it had much better be kept in abeyance,
until it shall have become rounded into the graces
of the town dicta. On some topics, indeed, a little
latitude is allowable, such as Forti's singing, or Melville's
last book, or Mrs. Butler's horseback riding;
but woe be to the unfortunate young man, who in
a moment of forgetfulness, should express admiration
for Beneventano's voice, or smile at Sanquirico's
pantomime, or think Truffi any thing but exquisite,
even in black satin.
Indeed, it would be quite unsafe for an ambitious
young man to venture without some previous preparation
on the score of tasty remark, into one of
our town galleries; for if he should inadvertently
linger before a painting which had not received the
stamp of approbation from those who guide in these
matters, it would at once blast his reputation. I
am not a little surprised that some of our publishers
who have latterly taken to stealing occasional matter
from the journals, should not venture upon the
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preparation of a little text-book of taste, carefully
compiled from the Home Journal, the Day-Book, and
Sun newspaper, with notes by the author of `Etiquette,
' and a preface by N. P. W. They might
adorn the title with a Vignette—an Hyperion head;
and for tail-piece, they might adopt a prize of the
Art-Union.
You will be on your guard, then, my dear Fritz,
when you come to the city; and don't make your
friends blush by running counter to the town standards;
get hold, if you can, of an odd number of the
Revue de Noveau Monde, and post yourself a page
or two in taste.
Και ταυθ' ο
χρ&eeacgr;ζων, λαμπρος
εσθ', ο μ&eeacgr;
δ&eeacgr;λων
Σιγ&aacgr;.
Whip up your Greek, Fritz, and tell me if this
line from Euripides comes not as pit-pat as in
the Attic Stage-piece, or as any on the fly-leaves
of St. Leger? `Follow the town umpires of taste,
and you may achieve a reputation; neglect them,
and you had better be dumb;' and this translation
is as near the mark, as Gliddon's interpretation of
the hieroglyphies; or as any Opera lady's construction
of the quel che fa, in Don Giovanni!
As for music, it will work social wonders, absolutely
Orphean; and a young lady who cannot
boast her two or three months' tuition from some
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Signor Birbone, is lost to all hope of success.
Gentlemen who are without a decided bent in that
way, should cultivate a certain intensity of expression,
which is to be worn at all private concerts,
but rarely to be assumed at the Opera: he
should also learn the meaning of barytone, soprano,
and contralto, and if possible pronounce them with
the Italian accent; he should occasionally look
over Saroni's Musical Times, and get some crude
notions about the difference between the German
and Italian composers. It would be well for him
to know something of the personal history of Lablache,
or Grisi, and he should speak enthusiastically
of Meyerbeer, and rather doubtingly of Duprez.
If caught in the society of those who really
talk knowingly on these topics, it would be best for
him to keep silent, look very wise, and to fill up the
intervals of talk, by humming the `Last link is
broken,' or Yankee Doodle.
It would never do to admire the old fashion ballad
singing; and as for psalm tunes, a man had better
be caught listening to `Love not,' from the band
of the Anatomical Museum.
But I must defer, my dear Fritz, saying what
might be said of town coaches and politics, in their
connection with social position, to another letter;
and I shall entertain you, while your are smoking
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the lower end of your cigar, with a fragment of a
curious diary, from a fashionable friend of Tophanes'.
You will see that he is almost as little used to
journal making, as many of our later writers of
travels; but there are sparks in him of capital
good taste; and, if I might use the language of the
town critics, though not very scholar-like, it is
clearly the production of a gentleman, and perhaps
a soldier! Tophanes has recommended that
it should be entitled the
Dec. 20. Went to Trimum's party last night;
danced with Miss Thuggins,—rather tasty, but
devilish blue. I wish she wouldn't wear such
a ridiculous head-dress; found everybody laughing
at us; very well for a chat, but musn't dance with
her. Talked with Mrs. Knowem,—a good lady
to be acquainted with, ugly as sin; but then she's
a favorite, and good-natured as possible; offered
to take me to the Blinkum's—kind of her. Hope
it'll be stormy, so we can go in a carriage; don't
like to be seen walking in the street with her.
Must send her a bouquet.
Dec. —. Called to-day on the Blinkum's—rather
cool; but had enough compliments ready to warm
'em down; must get a new stock against I go again.
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Got an invitation to receptions—shall accept; shan't
be very particular; they are nice people, very respectable,
but confounded poor.
Dec. —. Go to a ball to-night at Widge's. They
say it's a splendid affair; hardly know how I got
an invitation. (Mem. To call on Browne to-morrow,
and settle up; he'll be blabbing.) Want confoundedly
to get an introduction to Miss Blank—capital
dancer, and very distinguished-like; it would be
quite a feather to take her up to supper; must contrive
it somehow; mustn't forget to wear the embroidered
waistcoat—that's killing. Am afraid I
shall meet Mrs. Dandy, a dear good friend—do
any thing for her; but she'll keep me in the corner
for an hour; must try and not catch her eye. How
infernally she does dress!
Jan. 1. Fagged out! Let me see—a hundred
and fifty calls,—there's a gain of forty-two on last
year—capital gain too—all top-knots! The Widge's
rather cool, but then half a dozen saw me there—
that'll count. There's a stupid set a body must
call on, or they'll be talking him down, and that'll
never do. After all, it's cheap to get a good word
for a visit once a year. Mean to go in a carriage
another year, if the salary don't fall off.
Jan. —. Got an introduction last night to Miss
Tubins; she's an heiress—a hundred thousand, they
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say, in her own right. She's a little literary—wish
I'd known it before; might have quoted any quantity
from Byron and Shakspeare. (Mem. To look over
book of extracts.) Is it best to call on her? Am
going to the Opera to-night; hope she'll be there;
no idea of being particular; but then it's a capital
thing to be seen with an heiress; it makes
people talk. And then again, chatting during the
music is capital; it makes one appear indifferent,
as if he had heard better in his day; and, moreover,
it allows you to put your head very close to a lady's
ear, which looks very familiar and confidential-like.
It looks well. (Mem. To put some peppermints in
my vest pocket.)
Jan. —. That cursed fellow B— tells me he
suggested my name to Mrs. Figgins as a nice, gentlemanly
young man—first among the `admissibles'—
and yet haven't got an invitation. Must
look very bold and unsuspicious when I pass her
carriage; think I shall give her a downright stare.
It'll look well—as if I had never heard of her before.
Bowed to-day to the Miss Widges—think they took
it kindly; must call some day next week, and
rub up my French a little before going; they say
they talk French capitally. Should like to manage
to walk home from church with them some Sunday;
all the world is out, and of course it will
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make remark. They say, too, they are great
church women—better humor it. (Mem. To look
over Dr. Hawks' tract on Auricular Confession, and
to buy a new box of pomade.)
Jan. —. Wonder where Shanks buys his cravats?
They have a devilish pretty tie. Ask Mrs. Beman
about it, and when the new shirts are coming home.
Am going to the Dangle's to-night—magnificent
house, fine flowers, plenty of money, but only so so
for `blood.' They say she wants to `work up;' think
she may in the course of a winter or two, seeing
that the —'s have done as much. Wonder what
it'll cost her? Shall try, I think, to get into their
graces; they'll be grateful for attentions—know
they will. Needn't be afraid of compliments—can
put 'em on raw; they can't see the edges. They
say Mrs. Dinks visits them, and she's of an old
family; must find her out—meet her as if I knew
her; it'll tell well.
Jan. —. Got an invitation to Swivel's;—made his
money by some small manufacturing, either saddles,
horse-shoes, or book-backs, but musn't decline.
Besides, he has a pretty daughter, though
she don't know much;—all the better for that. Am
to dine out to-morrow. Wonder who'll be there?
Must look over my dinner stories: heard a deuced
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good one the other day, but afraid I've lost it.
Wish I had learned to sing.
Met Stokoskinski the other day; wonder if it'll
pay to ask him to dine? He's a vulgar toad, but
then he's a lion: it won't do to lose him: and these
poor seape-goats are, they say, very grateful for a
dinner.
There's Mangle, too—has written a book,—I
don't know what: strange that the ladies can regard
such fal-de-ral matters; but they do. I must
try and see him—of course, meet him as an old
friend, and tell the women I'm intimate, and
that he's a sad dog. The jackanapes won't know
the difference—talk to him about his book, and I'll
play him just where I want him; he's as poor as a
crow. (Mem. To step into Putnam's, and ask what
he wrote?)
Jan. —. They've got a new singer at the Opera—
wonder what they say of her? Must call on Mrs.
H—; it won't do to be precipitate; can't depend
now on the Home Journal; they say it's growing fashionable
to dispute even W—. How shall I manage
to get at some of —'s literary soirées? To be sure,
they sneer at her, but it's sheer envy; besides, one
sees the lions, and as they say, a great many firstrate
people; and gets a deal of serviceable matter
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—rather heavy, but do very well to spice with.
Should like to know an artist or two; one gets supplied
with genteel terms about the paintings; and
that reminds me to buy an Italian Dictionary;
what the d—l is chiaro-scuro? Miss Sweepstakes
asked me the other day, and had to tell it was a
particular sort of varnish; hope it is.
Jan. —. Went to a concert last night with the
Swet's—horrid hot, and stupid. But then they are
serviceable bodies, very respectable, and all that;
very good recommends in case I want to get married;
musn't let the acquaintance drop. What a
fool I was to talk about the Opera—ought to have
remembered that they were sad blues; must ask
Wiley for a list of Dr. Cheever's works, and if not
too long, commit to memory.—Asked the S—'s if
they knew the author of Gringers, and pointed him
out; it's all very well to know these characters, but
it is bad to talk too admiringly,—best to be a little
flippant, and patronizing. Shall try and get acquainted
with Dr. G— of the Prose Writers; they
say he knows everybody, and everything, and tells
the oddest stories! A devilish fine acquisition.
(Mem. To ask him if he knows Dr. Headley?) By
Jove, I must write a book!—think the Harpers would
publish if I'd pay for the printing, and advertising,
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and guaranty against loss by fire; and as for its moral,
about which they say they are rather tidy, why I'd
stick a verse from the Psalms in the title-page, and
dedicate it to some D—D fellow, or other.
Passed an evening a day or two ago at the
Shrimp's—very learned indeed; quite scientific-like—
talk Greek, they say; yet there was a capital set—
uncommon respectable. Must cultivate the sciences
a little more; wonder what the subscription
price is to Littel?
Jan. —. Have just found out who drives that magnificent
equipage with the splendid harness cloth;
shall try and get upon speaking terms; to be sure,
they are stupid parvenus; but then it tells well to
take off your hat to a showy equipage. The talk
last night at Fidge's ran upon books, and I had the
stupidity to run off in a string of praises upon W's
book, that I picked up in the newspaper. Found
out that the Fidge's felt scandalized at something
he had written; of course they looked horror at
me; must be more careful;—will try and fish up
some abuse against I go there again.
Jan. —. Had a visit from Mapes, a country cousin;
what on earth sent him to town; the fellow
will be insisting on my showing him the lions, and
he's most unconsciously gawky. Wonder if he's
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got the money to buy another hat—am afraid I
shall have to lend it. Shall change my lodgings in
the spring.
Went the other night to take supper at Dobson's—
a very scholarly sort of a catch, who wants
to be a high liver, and all that; but he can't make
it go,—at least, don't think so. Latin quotations
won't go down now-a-days. He had better take to
music or horses. However, it looks well to be seen
with such book chaps—glad there are such—you
get up a little reputation for book-knowledge, and
as you don't use it, people think you are very modest;—
I think so too.
Jan. —. It won't do, I am convinced of it, to go to
a Presbyterian Church any more; it may answer
when a man's established in the town, but it ain't
fashionable: can't humor my religious scruples
any more—feel attached to 'em, very much,—but
it won't do:—must try and smuggle into Grace.
The Holy Sacrament is very well, but rather low;
besides, everybody can go there, so there's no particular
merit. (Mem. To buy one of the fancy
prayer-books, and get a velvet collar put on my
coat.) There's more in this church matter than
a body thinks for;—used to slight it, and go regular
as a deacon to Dr. S—'s; but it don't tell at
all.
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They say it's getting quite the thing to be vestryman;
must lay an oar to windward for that berth.
As for Puseyism, it's best to keep cool, and see how
the wind lies.
Jan. —. Went to the Opera last night; got for a
moment into the Shrimps's box—very chatty, but
uncommon stupid: told the Blinkum's so, at which
they laughed (never smiled at any thing I said before),
and thought me very funny—asked me to
spend the evening with them.
D—n it, I think I'm getting on!
Such, dear Fritz, is the rude but racy account
which Tophanes' friend has given of his prospects
and tactics. You will, I know, agree with me in
saying, that it bears the stamp of earnestness, and
very many internal proofs of authenticity. Very
many of its allusions are of course unknown to me;
but should they prove to be apt, and pointed, I
shall insist on publishing further extracts. At the
same time, I may add, that while Tophanes holds
himself responsible for all the material statements
of his friend, yet should any thing about them prove
offensive to the parties alluded to, such parties
shall have the amplest opportunity for denial or explanation,
and their letters shall be treated with
the utmost consideration.
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We shall give the following letter and its answer;
for although they are hardly worth printing,
they may perhaps serve as an encouragement to
such letter-writers as have never ventured out of
the Sunday papers, or the Globe.
Mr. Timon:
Dear Sir,—I wish you would send me, soon as
convenient, the card of your friend Tophanes. I
think he must be a `stick;' and I rather imagine
he can give me the right sort of advice. For you
must know that I've been hanging on the town
nearly the whole winter, and yet the d—l of an
invitation have I got.
Mind you, I don't act hurriedly in this matter.
I want you to know that I've done all that a man
could be reasonably expected to do. In the first
place, I've paid Martell a bill of some $10 12½; I
have cultivated what I consider one of the prettiest
moustaches afloat; I have worn out nearly three
dozen of Alexander's best kids at the Opera, concerts,
at Grace Church, and on Broadway. I have
even stepped into Crowen's several times to subscribe
to De Trobriand's Revue—but confound it, I
can't read French. I get my breeches cut at
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Derby's, and have sent a bouquet to Madame P—;
besides, I've written a sonnet to one of the most
fashionable ladies of the town, for the Day-Book
(the Home Journal wouldn't print it), and sent her
a copy.
My name is on the books at the New York Club,
and I've got all the tittle-tattle of the day at my
tongue's end; I don't wear a scratch, and as for
the polka, I've been taking lessons all winter. It
wouldn't be of so much importance, if these accomplishments
had not given me rather a bad name down
town; there's no hope of a law office, and my application
the other day for a clerkship in a Broadway
store was sneezed at. Couldn't Tophanes
help me out?
Very confidentially,
Tim. Green.
N. B.—They take in my letters at the New
York Club.
P. S.—I forgot to tell you that I carry a cane,
and part my hair behind.
Tophanes' compliments to Mr. Green, and would
recommend to Mr. Green, Mr. Browne.
University Terrace, 5 P. M.
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With this, my dear Fritz, I leave you to your
quiet country avocations, until the mail of another
week shall light up your solitude with a glowing
No. V.
Timon.
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FEB. 21. NEW-YORK. NO. 5.
“Chi s'insegna ha un pazzo per maestro.”
—Italian Proverb.
[figure description] Page 087.[end figure description]
The Opera-going ladies are, of course, so familiar
with Italian that I shall have no need to translate
for them an Italian motto; but for you, Fritz, over
whom ten years have rolled (and don't blush for
your age) since you regaled yourself on stewed kidneys,
and Orvietto wine, in the dirty trattoria that
stands under the lea of the Roman Pantheon, I
will render the proverb into plain English:—`Who
teaches himself has a fool for his master!' And
now for the application. Sundry wiseacres, guided
by their own penetration, have fixed the authorship
of these papers. Unfortunately however, both for
themselves and the public, they do not at all agree
-- 088 --
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in their conclusions; and my publisher has latterly
supplied an inquisitive friend of mine with a list of
no less than six or seven different persons, each one
of whom had been represented to him as the undoubted
author of the Lorgnette!
Among the names, I notice that of a prominent
journalist, a classical editor, a newspaper reporter,
a sagacious musical critic, a professed book-maker,
a doctor of divinity, a vamper-up of old jokes, an
erudite merchant, a slashing medical man, and—
would you believe it?—an enterprising literary lady!
Indeed, I had the pleasure, at a late evening entertainment,
of hearing the whole of the last number
read aloud, from beginning to end. And it
heightened not a little the mirth of the matter, to
find that certain critiques upon the piece, which I
hazarded in course of conversation, took vastly well,
from their unsophisticated nature; and they even
drew down upon me, in the end, the titter of the
whole company, to think that a man should be so
ignorant, as I seemed to be, of town society! To
tell the truth, I showed such lamentable ignorance
of the more pointed allusions, that the hostess was
evidently much mortified, and would have come
near to blushing—though she was over forty—had I
not apologized, by pleading a recent return from
the country.
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The whole of this company, which was variously
made up of keen, middle-aged women and astute
young fellows of five-and-thirty, persisted in attributing
the work to a certain gentleman of high scholastic
attainment, who has spent many years abroad,
and who was represented to me, as a person of extraordinary
character in various ways. Of course,
I expressed a great desire to see such a lion, and
am promised, by my friend the old dowager lady,
a sight of him at her rooms, on some evening of the
coming week. She hinted, however, that I would
do well to pay particular attention to my toilette
on the evening of the presentation, since otherwise,
he might serve me up in his next, as a bumpkin. I
expressed due thanks, and shall appear in one of
Wyman's best blue coats, elegantly set off with figured
gilt buttons.
A young gentleman who was directly accused of
concocting these weekly opinions in the book-shop
of my publisher, met the charge, as I understand,
with a simper, and a knowing smile—cocked his
hat a little upon one side of his head, and attempted
to whistle a stave from La Favorita, but broke up
before he was half way through. These were certainly
suspicious signs, and had their weight with
the shop-boy.
The literary lady, too, as I am told, denied the
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allegation with an air of evident embarrassment—
as, indeed, any woman would naturally deny a
progeny of so very equivocal origin. I wish to
heaven, Fritz, that the state of our morals was such,
that no lady of the town should manifest any
greater anxiety to bely her offspring! And though
John Timon blurts the matter himself,—if the town
striplings did no more discredit to their parentage
than the Lorgnette, there would be little need of
sharpening up these `studies of the town,' aut res
tangere acu!
— Vile bigots, hypocrites,
Externally-devoted apes, base snites,
Puffed up, wry-necked beasts, worse than the Huns
Or Ostrogoths, forerunners of baboons;
— dissembling varlets, seeming sancts,
— beggars pretending wants,
Fat chuffcats, smell-feast knockers, doltish gulls.
Gate of Theleme.
There are an almost incalculable number of respectables
in town—both respectable things, as
churches, eating-houses, slop-shops, and the like;
and respectable people, as lawyers, note-shavers, fops,
and women. I have been puzzling my brain for a
long time, in the hope of finding out what it was that
made a particular broker or play-house respectable.
You shall have, Fritz, the result of my observations,
though they are by no means definitive, and
-- 091 --
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will serve only to show a few modifications of what
the town, in its wisdom, is pleased to dub—respectable!
Nor will I promise but that these observations
themselves, shall be very much modified by further
discoveries.
My neighbor, the grey-haired lodger above stairs,
is certainly a most respectable man, though he has
rarely a sixpence of change about him. He bears,
so far as I know, a good name; is regular in his
habits, and has struck me, notwithstanding a
greasy coat collar, as the very pink of respectability—
a sort of standard for the whole class of respectables.
You can judge, then, of my surprise, at
hearing my landlady say to a grocer's boy, who
came with a heavy bill for spermaceti, lemons, and
whiskey, against the tasteful lodger, and who was
very urgent for the money—`that the gentleman
would surely pay—that she had never had a more
respectable gentleman in her house!'
But I find that it is not at all necessary to pay
bills to be respectable; and have been credibly informed,
that very many men about town—both
authors and bankrupts—who are never known to
pay bills, rank as highly respectable. Indeed, on
asking the other day in regard to the character of
a defaulting gentleman, I was assured that he was
eminently respectable. My friend Tophanes informs
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[figure description] Page 092.[end figure description]
me further, that certain ladies who are remarkable
for very great eccentricities of dress, as well as
certain obliquities of conduct, are notwithstanding,
exceedingly respectable. An opera-singer was
pointed out to me as being, off the stage, quite
respectable; and a preacher, whom it was my fate
to hear a few Sundays back, was represented to me
as being, out of the pulpit, every way respectable.
A journalist who indulges in the most wanton
caricatures of good sense and decency, is called a
respectable man; and a publishing house, which
supplies the slip-slop literature of the day, is represented
as a most respectable house.
I hear in all quarters of respectable boot-makers,
respectable dancers, respectable ladies, and sometimes,
though more rarely, of respectable doctors,
and even respectable authors; and I am only surprised
that the Commissioners of the new code have
not included respectability in their list of qualifications
for jurors. So acute a man as Mr. F.
should have had an eye to this matter.
In the general way, I find that a black coat a
little threadbare is a very good type of respectability;
but if it have a velvet collar, the matter is
subject to doubt. A man who comes up from the
country, and pays his house bill regularly, and who
does not abuse the pavements, or the papers, may
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pass current as a respectable man for a long period
of time. My landlady, I found, had recommended
me to my laundress, as a respectable country gentleman,
of respectable connections.
A respectable family, as I find, lives in a respectable,
small house,—burns small fires, and enjoys
the acquaintance of a great many respectable people.
The master of the household does a small, but
respectable business; the wife dresses in very respectable
dark mousseline; the daughters attend a
respectable school, and the sons are clerks in a respectable
establishment. Respectable families are
very apt to give tea-drinkings, where you will find
a great many respectable old ladies, who sip Bohea
out of blue and white china—who talk in subdued
tones about the weather, the fashions, the scandal,
the respectable books, and the babies,—and who
discourage hilarity in the younger branches of the
household, by saying,—`My dear, it is not respectable.
' They have a small library of most respectable
books, such as Pilgrim's Progress, Arthur's
Tales, Science Made Easy, an odd volume of the
Arabian Nights, and Headley's Sacred Mountains.
They, of course, subscribe to so respectable a paper
as the Commercial Advertiser. They have a most
respectable way of talking, and do not say anything
of anybody or any subject but what is respectable.
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They have a respectable card-basket filled with
very respectable names; and having passed many
respectable evenings at respectable families, I can
of course, commend them to you, Fritz, when you
come up to town, as every way respectable.
The respectable lawyer (there are such) does a
quiet, counsel business, dresses in prim style, and
has copies of Chitty, Cowan, Johnson, and a thumbworn
`Acts;' — he borrows the New Code, and
Statutes at large, is Commissioner for Rhode
Island or Ohio, has a respectable sign at his office
door, and is known chiefly, if you are particular in
your inquiries, as a respectable lawyer. If a
bachelor, he dresses respectably (only respectably),
lives at a respectable house,—will possibly, in time,
unless a ne exeat be served, marry some respectable
woman,—drink respectable sherry to his Sunday's
dinner, and make out respectable `writs of deliverance.
'
The respectable doctor looks very grum at mention
of the Scalpel, but subscribes to the Medico-Chirurgical—
laughs good-humoredly at Forbes'
wit—expresses respectable opinions of Brodie and
Liston—owns a respectably bound copy of Velpeau's
Surgery, which he never reads—does a respectable
business—attends service at a respectable
church (near the door, so that the congregation may
-- 095 --
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suppose him to be absent)—wears a wise scowl—
has one or two respectable criticisms in condemnation
of homeopathy—drives a respectable gig—and
is known as a respectable practitioner.
The respectable clergyman preaches respectable
sermons, adapted chiefly to very respectable people;
and he is, unfortunately, but too well satisfied with
a respectable weekly attendance, and a respectable
salary; his hearers are, of course, respectable; and
he leads them at a respectable gait, toward the
practice of a highly respectable Christianity.
A respectable author is of somewhat rarer accidence;
it being generally understood among respectable
people, that all the pith, wit, and point
which go to make a writer popular, are by no means
respectable. Dullness may be reckoned eminently
respectable; and not a few of the town authors,
with an eye to this last-named quality, have won
a reputation for respectability, absolutely gigantic.
Their works are read by all respectable old ladies,
and are commended by the New York Express.
But wo be to the writer, young or old, who thinks
to tread on the prejudices of respectable society,
whatever they may be! Wo be to him, if he thinks
to enter any protest against the insipidities and
hollow affectations of the town-life; or to plead
with such strength as lies in his tongue or brain
-- 096 --
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for a little more humanity of purpose—for a leveling
of those hideous elevations which pride, or impudence,
or gold, have built up in our most Republican
City! Wo be to him, if he pricks, with a
sting that punctures, the wind-blown reputations
that conceit and effrontery have fecundated! Wo
be to him, if his stylus, sharp as a knife, cuts
deep into the calf-skin integuments that hold together
our most worthy life of fashion! Wo be to
him, if he attempt to lift off from the carcass of the
body social, those flimsy, patched-up coverlets of
respectability and propriety, which keep down the
smell of its corruption!
Take breath, my dear Fritz, and we will come
back to respectable young women. The term does
not include genteel young women, or fashionable
young women, nor yet play-actresses—unless, indeed,
the united efforts of Mr. Maretzek and a
prominent journalist, should snatch them from their
fashionable perdition, and set them in fashionable
salons. Irish servant maids are, of course, out of the
question, and much more, those of American birth.
French governesses and German teachers are always
eminently respectable.
Respectable people are remarkably tenacious of
their dignity; and they do not think it respectable
for shabby-looking old ladies, in faded bombazine,
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to be shown into their pews at church; nor do they
like to have young women in pea-green silks and
ancient bonnets, ring at their door-bell. They do
not like to have a poor, respectable man build on
the same block where they are living; they do not
think it respectable. They are cautious how they
suffer their respectable boys to play at `hide and
go seek' with poor respectable boys. Of course,
they give respectably to public charities, but do not
like to ask their poor country cousins to dine with
them, when they expect respectable company;—or
to church with them, except on rainy Sundays.
We have seen, you know, Fritz, the best bred
European ladies dining, and even chatting somewhat
gaily with their bonnes; but it would quite
shock the highly respectable women of our Republican
town, to be seen publicly on any terms of familiarity
with a dependant; it would not be respectable.
It is even advisable to close the windows
of a respectable coach, when the respectable owner
is riding with her nurse.
Fashions of dress become respectable for respectable
people, only after the milliners and fashionists
have made them so. The Jagello hat, for instance,
which we are looking for with intense interest,
would be sneered at for a month by all respectable
ladies; after which time of probation, it would
-- 098 --
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become, by the ordinary current of the town-life, a
most respectable hat; and all the respectable ladies
would tie it to their very respectable chins.
A stage play becomes now and then respectable;
and the Serious Family, after stirring into mirth
the critics and habitués, begins to draw a few respectable
people, who steal in as it were, clandestinely,
in respectable old hats; after a time, they
come openly and laugh boldly at Burton, while between
the acts, they assume a cool air of the highest
respectability!
Ancestry too, comes in for a share of respectability,
and is, I find, the source of a great supply
of the staple. If fathers have not been altogether
respectable, it is well for a respectable young man
to go back to his grandfather, who, if he turns out
one of the small fry of honest mechanics, had best
be docked off the ancestral list, and a trumpery
story dished up, of old English, or Dutch names,
and connections. And such story will serve as admirable
fecund matter for the ingenuity of those
small artists who draw genealogical trees, and for
those enterprising foremen of coach painters, and
card engravers, who contrive coats-of-arms.
It should be remarked, however, that in adopting
this course, the parties will overleap the range
of respectables, and swoop down among genteel
-- 099 --
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people, or even among `leaders of the ton.' Indeed,
for a matron of rather weak wits, who wishes
to put her boys on an elevated plane—at the very
top, indeed, of the parabola which Mr. W. has so
gracefully cut out of an apple with his pen—it is
much safer to be genteel, than respectable.
Respectability is, after all, slightly vulgar, and
will not cramp inquiry or gossip, one half so well
as decided gentility. Moreover, gentility, from the
fact that it is a trifle more exclusive, comes less in
contact with strong, investigating habits of mind,
which might, in times of forgetfulness, prove fatal.
A substantial coach, with the blinds drawn, and a
magnificent house, very quiet, gloomy, and close, are
almost impenetrable; and if the house should be opened
for a ball, why the men are accessible (unless engaged
on church business) who will supply music,
suppers, crockery, carriages, and company, for a
respectable commission on the valuation.
In the rub and jam, nothing will be easier than
to escape irksome téte-à-téte; and the little bijouterie,
and papier maché ornaments, will establish
reputation on the score of taste—to say nothing of
a few well-scattered French novels—De Trobriand's
Revue, and a well-thumbed Lorgnette!
Respectable tea-parties, you must observe, are
subject to quicker scrutiny; they should by no
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means be indulged in, by those who have any
doubts on the score of their breeding. You may
take this as an axiom not without its worth:—vulgar
people had better not ape respectability; it is
safer to be genteel. Or, if I were to put it in the
form of a syllogism—which, if it were not better
than the best of Senator Foote's, I should be ashamed
to repeat even to myself—it would be thus:—
Respectability promotes inquiry;
Ill-bred people are sensitive to inquiry;
Therefore, ill-bred people had best eschew respectability.
Please to lodge that middle term, Fritz, in your
cranium, as another axiom which will prove explanatory
of a great deal of town talk, and action.
As for Ancestry, I must say no more of it, since
I am intending to furnish, with the aid of the gray-haired
lodger, a full chapter upon pedigree; which,
when it appears, you may be assured, will be as
well worth possession by town livers, as the British
Herd-Book to Durham-Cattle Breeders, or the Turf
Register to cockney sportsmen.
Town respectability may be summed up, as a
sort of emasculated honesty. It is a kind of decent
drapery, which society purloins from what Burke
calls, `the wardrobe of the moral imagination,' to
cover the shivering defects of poor human nature.
-- 101 --
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If you can say nothing good of your friend, at least,—
call him respectable. If your neighbor has defrauded
the business community, time and again,
and yet lives in the best of style, prospering in a
new commerce of coffee or cotton,—call him respectable.
If a lady has forgotten herself, her duty,
or her husband, she can creep under this elastic
screen of respectability. If a clergyman preaches
doubtful sermons, or practices doubtful sins,—dub
him respectable. If you are caught chatting familiarly
with your coachman, or your tailor, you have
only to say—they are respectable. If your newspaper
is dull and prosy, and given to long, tedious
twaddle,—it is, at least, highly respectable. There
is no vitality, no earnestness, and no independence
in town respectability. There are plenty
of respectable politicians, respectable writers, and
respectable women; but I never heard of a respectable
hero, a respectable Christian, or a respectable
philanthropist.
“He has an excellent faculty of bemoaning the people, and spits with
a very good grace. He will not draw his handkercher out of his place,
nor blow his nose, without discretion.”
—Bishop Earle.
I now and then meet, dear Fritz, with some old
vestiges of the beau-craft, which existed twenty years
ago. They were nearly my contemporaries, it is
-- 102 --
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true, but they have much the advantage of me in
having kept up an acquaintance with the beau
monde of the town, while I have been wandering,—
Heaven knows where. They are quite curious
specimens of our kind, and are deserving of one of
those accurate observations, which my lorgnette is
sure to furnish.
With no great physical attractions, they yet
dress in the top style;—perhaps sport a beard, or
imperial, or both, to conceal the lines which age
has wrought in their chins. They use the best
pomades on the town, and are capital authorities
for whoever is on the look-out for a good tailor, boot-maker,
or barber. They sneer, of course, at what
they call the frippery of the day, and are particular
in their attentions to very young ladies. They
are usually club-men, and assume a sort of dignity
and importance in the reading-room and restaurant,
which is graciously accorded them. They play a
good hand of whist, at a quarter the corner, with
some old-fashioned observances in the game, which
would not have done discredit to Mrs. Battle.
They take, too, a quiet pleasure in an occasional
half hour at `old sledge.'
They make excellent diners-out, and are sure to
fish up an invitation or two a week, from some of
their former companions, who have now homes of
-- 103 --
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their own. They take the liberty of cracking very
bold jokes with their friends' wives; and are partial
to `old particular' Madeira. They, of course, are
full of anecdotes, more especially of that equivocal
sort, which follows the retirement of the ladies,
and which, for one hearing, are quite passable.
They are full of wise saws about government and
society; and are exceedingly violent in their ridicule
of the parvenus of the day. Though they are
not partial to parties,—most of them having become
slightly rheumatic,—they pay evening calls, and
are particularly earnest in their movements among
the boxes at the Opera House.
They are great admirers of beauty,—make frequent
mention of the favors they have received
from certain ladies, `they would not like to name,'
and are particularly delighted when they are accused
in private conversation, of being `dangerous
dogs.' They talk of marriage as if every lady of
the town was on the qui vive to possess them, and
as if they had still fair prospects of a numerous
and stalwart progeny. They are great favorites at
tea-parties, where spinsters congregate, and can
handle a pair of sugar-tongs as daintily as their
own legs. They are dabsters at a compliment;
and some few of a literary turn, have been known
on special occasions to make sonnets, scarce
-- 104 --
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inferior to those of Mr. Benjamin. They have no
charity for the small fry of authorlings, which
swarm upon the town; and abuse them all in round
style.
They know, of course, nearly all the world, and
sneer very confidently at the few whom they do not
know. They talk in a familiar strain with clergymen
and editors of popular journals; and they cultivate
a certain indifference and carelessness of
manner in the bar-rooms, and in the street, which
is quite remarkable. Nothing disturbs them more
than to fall in with a really earnest man, who is
disposed by his talk to prick them out of their lethargic
state, and to try the metal of their old coin of
opinion; they have no means of dealing with such a
fellow, but to condemn him as a flippant coxcomb.
They affect an uncommon knowledge of French,
and of all the finer accomplishments; they are quick
to detect, what they reckon breaches of etiquette,
and are precise—even to pocketing a dry crust at
table, to clean their white gloves for an evening.
They manage to get an introduction to most of
the reigning belles, and talk much about them,
though they know very little. They call themselves
connoisseurs in brandy and paintings; and have
a peculiarly sweet tooth for French entremets; and
such as have an unpronounceable name, they think
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very fine. They wear a heavy signet ring, and cultivate
a delectable familiarity with house-maids,
and opera-singers. They assume a very patronizing
way with the daughters of their old friends,—
call them by their first names,—will sometimes
venture a kiss,—write them valentines, and give
them small presents of bijouterie.
They pride themselves hugely on a handsome
foot, a genteel figure, or a very bushy beard; and
express plaintive regrets for the great number of
young women whom they have unsuspectingly
made unhappy. They are fond of showing their
friends little billets, directed in a very delicate
hand-writing, and though they do not exhibit their
contents, they wink in a way that makes one sympathize
deeply with the unfortunate victims of their
address, and agreeable qualities. They have a
carefully cultivated laugh, and if their teeth remain
sound, it is open-mouthed. They are of
course very jocular and gay-humored, and are
careful to conceal their occasional sighs; they do
not like to read very fine print. They write very
delicate notes of acceptance to evening entertainments
and dinner parties, and seal with a very
large private seal. They commit to memory the
best portions of the musical critiques in the newspapers,
and yet sneer at the critics as poor
-- 106 --
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starveling vagabonds; they adopt the editorials of the
Journal of Commerce on matters of trade, and yet
turn up their noses at the opinions of the press.
As for profession, they are very likely (living on
a snug two thousand a year) above that sort of
thing; or perhaps, are plethoric bill-brokers, or
silent partners in a jobbing concern, or small lawyers
with a great many trusteeships in their hands,
or doctors who visit respectable old dowagers, that
have been lingering under hypochondriasis for an
indefinite period of time.
And one of these very old beaux will read the
Lorgnette over his cigar at the Club-house—his
remainder bottle of port at his side,—his head inclining
back,—his varnished boots upon a chair,
and with the most self-satisfied air in the world
will condemn the writer to perdition as an arrant
literary coxcomb; — never once imagining that
John Timon is perhaps his senior by half a score,
that he has helped him out of innumerable scrapes,
and has very possibly seen as much of the world
about us, as he or any of his fraternity.
Pray take it kindly, old fellow; don't let your
asthma or weakness in the joints annoy you too
much; semel senescimus omnes!
There are old belles, too, my dear Fritz, who are
biding their time; and when the humor is upon
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me, you shall have their portraits, even to the color
of their eyes, and of their stockings.
I shall publish without any prefatory remarks,
the following letter from a lady: if I might, however,
be permitted to judge from a certain gracefulness
of expression, and an indescribable under-lying
of the savoir-faire, I should say that it came, not
only from the hands of an accomplished lady, but
from one who is perfectly familiar with the improprieties
of the town.
My Dear Mr. Timon:
It has been hinted to me that you are an old
friend of my former husband; if you are, I wish you
would do me the favor to call; any little remembrances
of the dear, good man are most satisfying.
I want to tell you, too, how much I approve your
work; your judicious remarks upon taste, I cannot
praise high enough. I have long felt the want of
just such a book as you propose. As for the polka,
you've said just what you ought to say; it's a positive
shame, the way our young folks do go on in
these matters! Only to think that my little cousin
Polly went so far the other evening as to lay her
head outright on a gentleman's shoulder, out of
-- 108 --
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sheer exhaustion; why, Sir, it made all the blood
boil in my body!
I've talked with my clergyman about it, a dear,
good man, (are you a clergyman?) who makes long
parochial calls. He says it's `an abomination,' and
he quoted a passage from scripture, but I have forgotten
it.
I wish you'd say something about the way some
people hold up their clothes at the street-crossings;
its growing worse and worse; and I see they are
beginning to trim off their drawers with delicate
lace edgings,—as if such things were expected to be
looked at, except by the chaste eyes of servant
maids, and little poodles!
Do go on, Mr. Timon—you seem to me to be a
sober, rational minded old gentleman; and since
my dear husband's death, I have met with very few
of that sort.
Respectfully,
Dorothea.
P. S. — If you wish, I can give you my address.
Another letter which has come to hand, as my
paper is going to press, appears to be from a
vivacious young lady, of quick parts. She writes:
-- 109 --
Dear Mr. Timon:
[figure description] Page 109.[end figure description]
I wish you would let me know who you are:—
do; I think I could give you some capital hints; you
know a lady knows a great deal that a gentleman
never can know, try as hard as he may. Besides,
I should like amazingly to dance a polka with you;
I know from the way you write about it, that you
must understand it a great deal better than the
fussy little fellows who almost pull me over, and
havn't got an idea of the spirit of the thing. A
lady wants some sort of support,—doesn't she? I
think you could give it, and not be pushing one
about against the wall-flowers, and getting dizzy
and stupid.
I and my cousin go to nearly all the balls; and
though there won't be any but Presbyterian ones,
now that Lent has come in, still I know some real
gay blues, who dance as mad as any Episcopalians.
I'll introduce you, and we'll have some capital
times.
I've got an aunt, who says such witty things!
Do let me know who you are. I'm not a bit afraid
to send you my address; wont you call in the morning?
There are a half dozen fellows from the New
York Club, that come in every evening. I want to
tell you something about them; they do say such
stupid things!
-- 110 --
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Do you visit Madame T—? Try to. It's a delightful
place;—such splendid oyster suppers! I
don't care if you print this; only if you do,punctuate
it, and correct the spelling. I'm so familiar
with French, that I misspell my English half the
time. Don't talk hard about the Home Journal;
it's a love of a paper! I've written a letter for it
that's going to be published by-and-by.
Yours, affectionately,
Lucia.
I am most sorry to be compelled to withdraw
my claim to Lucia's acquaintance. I am sure she
must be a love of a girl; but Tophanes is her man,
and I shall hand over to him the necessary documents.
Nothing makes me regret my age and
baldness so much as these little kind testimonials,
from genteel young women! Still, Fritz, we can
be young on paper;—and so, thank God, I will be
young! and my pen shall dance its weekly fandango,
as lively as the liveliest of the polka striplings,—
though the rheumatics are warping my shoulder-blades,
and age is wintering my beard with gray!
Timon.
-- --
FEB. 28. NEW-YORK. NO. 6.
Ne demandez pas de quelle complexion il est, mais quelles sont ses
complexions; ni de quelle humeur, mais combien il a de sortes d'humeurs.
Ne vous trompez-vous point?
—La Bruyere.
[figure description] Page 111.[end figure description]
Pardon me, Fritz, if over your shoulder, and by
a few taps upon the tympanum of your most friendly
ear, I pass an explanatory word or two, for the
digestion of our cormorant public. It would seem
that I have been set down by not a few newspaper
critics, gossiping ladies, and by some respectable
book-sellers, (for whom I ought to say in way of
apology, that they rarely read the books they sell,)
as a caterer to the tastes of those who are facetiously
termed by the Sunday Journals, and oyster-cellar
men—`the upper Ten Thousand.' Now as I
-- 112 --
[figure description] Page 112.[end figure description]
have no particular desire of being mobbed, or burned
in effigy, and still less of being reckoned the pliant
toady to any scale or degree of social eminence,
I most respectfully decline the acknowledgment of
any imputation of this kind. And although I by no
means profess fraternization with those very earnest
paragraphists who rail at the people `above Bleecker,
' as if they were altogether destitute of those
human sympathies, which a kind Providence has
mercifully vouchsafed to people in other parts of the
town, (particularly Nassau Street, and Centre,)—
and while I cannot avow an entire coincidence of
opinion with the abettors of any Astor Place mob,
or haters of Macready, or Forrest worshipers;—
and though I do not feel at liberty to subscribe to
all the pleasant inuendos which come from the lips
of my neighbor the tasteful lodger, about the equipages
sometimes seen in Leonard Street, and the
coupes with closed windows, and the ball-room intrigues,—
yet, Heaven forbid that Mr. Crowen, or
any of his fashionable customers, from the subscribers
to the Home Journal downward, should reckon
me the mere caterer to the appetites of those
only who are rich, or—even worse—those who
would seem to be rich.
A rough-and-tumble observation of a great many
phases of life, both in the Old World and the New,
-- 113 --
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has taught me, that sincerity and worth are not
confined to any particular station of society;—that
modesty and purity are sometimes struggling under
the motherly-imposed haberdashery of a belle;
and that inordinate vanity, and a hankering after the
lusts of the flesh, are occasionally tossing under the
tawdriest ribbons that come from the Canal Street
shops.
But poverty I find to be the same unfortunate bedfellow
here, that it is in every quarter of the world—
Monsieur Cabet's Icaria (which I have not yet
had the good fortune to visit, save in the columns
of the Tribune) alone excepted. Town poverty has
at command but very indifferent means of concealing
the vices which attach to it;—thus the poor
buck from Greenwich Street, or the critical chair
of the smaller newspapers, living on forty dollars
a month, who swaggers upon Broadway of a Sunday
afternoon with a poor cigar, and one glove, will
be the mark for abundance of most friendly sneers
from the Christian people who live along the way;
and yet your pretentious man who pulls on his
couleur de paille kids, upon the steps of the New
York Club,—who sports a well-stitched palletot, and
very square-brimmed hat,—who scents Julien's
dinners, or the bouquet of mock Chambertin, as
fondly, and yet as ignorantly, as his compeer does
-- 114 --
[figure description] Page 114.[end figure description]
the Ann Street stews, or Albany beer, will not
only escape the odium of condemnation, but
will be counted a miracle of a man, by hosts of
young ladies at the front parlor windows;—not that
the ladies are looking out; on the contrary, they
are very intent upon their reading, or with kissing
the baby, and of course very unconscious that any
such gentleman, in stitched palletot, is any where
to be seen!
Now what the distinction is between these two,
in purpose, dignity, or humanity—that one should
be the object of adulation, and the other of sneers—
I think it would puzzle a nicer inquirer than Mr.
Calhoun to determine. Even in the matter of
taste, which in a highly adulterated state, is the
pabulum on which those disposed to fashionable
display inordinately feed—the advantage may lie
largely on the side of the Greenwich aspirant; and
this, notwithstanding his rival of the Club shall
have consulted incontinently the plates of La
Belle Assemblée.
So, too, a rich Cashmere, and Miss Lawson's
toggery of wadding, wreaths, and lacings, will not
only make a crooked form straight, a blanched
forehead ruddy, and restore fullness to the withered
hulk of six-and-thirty, but they will marvelously
deaden searching inquiry, and blunt the eyesight
-- 115 --
[figure description] Page 115.[end figure description]
of popular sagacity. A poor girl who scrimps the
frugal meal of a mother, that she may gratify her
woman's vanity with a flimsy mantilla, or a faded
hat ribbon, is smiled sourly upon as a worthless,
heartless creature; yet the lady of ton, squandering
thousands upon equipage and laces, deaf to the low
cries of a hundred mothers, going supperless each
night to their straw pallets,—are elegant fashionables,—
most generous lady patronesses of the
Opera,—most worthy pew-holders,—most commendable
Christians!
If, then, my observation should seem to confine
itself to that class of society whose position ought
to render it independent in action, and unimpeachable
in character, it is not surely in view of making
personal interest, for access to our Almack's, or to
tickle a vanity which needs no delicate touches of
a quill feather to be enlivened; or even were it
otherwise, enough of the town litterateurs are engaged
in the pursuit already; and I will do them
the credit of saying, that their adroitness is only
less commendable than their successes.
The Lorgnette adapts itself, then, to what the
booksellers may call, if they please, the higher
circles, only because the lower ones have less need
of the exposition intended. The follies of the latter
are bald and palpable, while those of higher life
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need closer examination,—nay, they would at first
sight pass for real beauties; but the lorgnette,
properly directed, will expose—what touches of
carmine,— what dust of pearl powder, — what
shaven foreheads,—what ugly wig seams! How
many follies need only a gilding to vanish; how
many vices need only the covering of luxury to
disappear!
When, therefore, Mr. Crowen, or my worthy
publisher, think fit to announce to their customers,
that the Lorgnette confines itself to glimpses in
high life, let them be fairly understood; let it be
fully known that it is from no lack of earnest Republican
intent, and from no desire to foster the
prejudices of a self-constituted, prurient town aristocracy.
In the honesty of a straightforward,
country purpose, John Timon begs leave, not insolently,
nor ill-naturedly, but firmly, and good-humoredly,
to lay his pen upon such social sinnings
of the hour, as seem to him worth the ink-lines of
demarkation; and in the full knowledge, intuitively
gained, and dearly cherished, that very many of
those whose wealth and position are pre-eminent,
will thank a stranger for speaking plainly of foibles,
which they acknowledge, discard, and deplore.
And now, Fritz, having laid the matter straight
between our obliging booksellers and the public,
let us come back to our moutons.
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— “Veniunt spectentur ut ipsæ.”
—Ovid.
Lions, my dear Fritz, are not confined to the
Jardin des Plantes, to the Regent's Park, to
Welch's Circus, or to Timbuctoo. They are bred,
it appears, in our town, and of such marvelous
thrift are they upon the diet, which this climate and
pasturage affords, that they will roar you, `as
'twere a nightingale,' or as stoutly as any Joiner of
the Night's Dream. We have, too, our allotment
of dear good Mrs. Leo Hunters, who are on the
search for the little cublings as soon as they are born;
and if so be they can roar, though only so much
`as a sucking dove,' they will be fondled and
nursed more daintily by them, than ever the
sinning Ephesians by the old three-breasted Diana.
These zoologic patronesses are not only mighty
quick of ear, but they have also a most delicate
sense of smell; and they will scent you a young
lion by the mere perfume of his mane, though his
voice is capable of only the most incipient roar.
They will feed him on such dainty food, and so
tickle him in the throat and haunches, that presently
he will roar, `as would do a man's heart good to
hear.' Thenceforth, he will be a caged animal, with
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his hours for feed, and his hours for relaxation, and
be as regularly stirred up for the admiration of
curious spectators, as the old Bengal Tiger at the
Surrey Gardens.
These lions are not only highly useful in offering
subjects for zoologic study to the common people,
and in affording agreeable diversion to children, but
they are of signal service, and I think I may add,
highly profitable, to their zealous and sagacious
captors. The methods of capture are numerous,
and adapted to the size, strength, and habits of the
animal. A well-roasted haunch of venison is considered
very capital bait for full-grown lions,
whereas whip syllabubs, and even water-ices, are
used with great success, as decoys for the younger
animals. Some few well-known lion-takers are
so sagacious in laying their bait, that a strange
lion can scarce venture within the town, but he is
at once taken in their toils.
It is almost needless to say, after so much has
been written upon the subject by Buffon and others,
that the lion is the king of beasts; but I may safely
add, what has escaped the notice of nearly all the
writers upon Natural History, that the lion is a
fashionable animal.
Indeed, there is scarce a lady of `parts' in the town,
who maintains an elevated position,—who is, in fact,
-- 119 --
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a `leader of the ton,' but has her bevy of lions, of
different degrees of age, virility, and tameness.
Some of these are so gentle that they can be
safely led about, even in public places, without
danger to the bystanders. Others are reserved for
the salom—or, as I should say, keeping up the
zoologic illusion—for the cages,—having a large
run, but under cover. Here they are made to roar,
by being fed or tickled. Others again are never
dealt with, but on special occasions, being irascible
in their nature, and at times somewhat dangerous.
They roar only as the humor takes them, and have
been known to show their teeth even to their captors.
They are, however, somewhat rare; but are in great
demand, and much sought after by connoisseurs.
Lions, of course, differ in breed; some being of the
royal stock—true Afric; and others of so diminutive
a make, that those who are knowing in the matter,
hint at the probability of there having been sometime
a cross with the jackal.
The greater part of the town-lions are brought
into the world under favor of the professional
services of the gossiping journals; the Express
newspaper is specially to be commended in this
matter, and its delicate manœuvring would scarce
do discredit to the best Sage-femme of the quarter
of St. Antoine.
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When fairly born, they are handed over to a
standard corps of wet-nurses in the shape of penny-a-liners,
and Mrs. Leo Hunters, who feed them on
pap and such like dainties, as I have already stated,
until they gain their full strength. Too
strong food at an early stage is hazardous, and in
some instances has produced a constriction that
has carried off the young lions in a stage of tender
infancy. Great numbers, too, of such as have enjoyed
the over-nursing of the Home Journal, and
the Literary World, have died from sheer surfeit;
and yet others, who have been fondled in the arms
of the old gossiping Lady, late of Broadway and
now of Wall Street, have lingered only a short feverish
existence—attributable, no doubt, to the
crude and weakly nature of the pap.
Lions, as I have already told you, are of numerous
sorts;—there are the musical lions, the literary
lions, the critical lions, the political lions, the fashionable
lions, the conversational lions, the play-house
lions, and the lions extraordinary.
Tophanes, who (I may as well say it) has been
in his day a fashionable lion, has supplied me with
a little epitome of their successive stages of growth;
and I shall select from it such examples as seem
suited to my purpose, at the same time adding
largely from my own observation.
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The musical lion, for instance, he tells me, if
intended for public exhibition, must have a rhythmical
foreign name, and be announced in the journals
as the distinguished performer, who has repeatedly
delighted all the members of the first European
Courts, (I pray your particular attention,
Fritz, to that word Courts, which has an uncommonly
happy odor for all the lion hunters of the town.)
He must next have a private trial in a public
room, possibly of the Astor, or Irving,—having previously
invited the critics, who are spare, hungry
dogs, to dine with him. This exhibition is heralded
next day as one eminently successful, and as
having given unfeigned satisfaction to a distinguished
circle of unprejudiced gentlemen and ladies,
of the highest critical taste.
The critics are honored with season tickets; the
journals, (such as do the advertising,) are profuse
of praises, and the Mrs. Leo Hunters are wide
awake to secure a capture. He becomes a lion in
the papers, is applauded at the concerts, in invited
to a soiree at the house of a `leader of the ton,' and
repays the condescension of the élite, with a song,
or a dexterous dab at his fiddle.
He has only now to manifest a proper insouciance,
wear white gloves, and tolerably clean linen,
to remain for his month the musical lion. Or if
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he fails in circles strictly fashionable, he can cut
off his beard, and try his hand in moderate Presbyterian,
or Baptist circles, where by cool, and assiduous
attention, and naïve repetition of fashionable
scandal, he may have a fair chance of renewing
his age of heroism.
The private musical lion gains his degree without
any newspaper noise. He is talked of in very extravagant
style by the young lady who sings duetts
with him; he volunteers (by request) his aid at an
amateur concert; and if he be really deserving in
voice, or execution, or possess any special attractions,
or even pleasant eccentricities, he will be
pounced upon by some watchful old lady hunter,
who is needful of just such advantageous commodity
to give a `pleasing variety to her receptions.'
He is petted, invited earnestly to come and pass
an evening—sometimes (but more rarely) asked to
dine—is talked of—wearies his lungs with constant
effort,—is entreated to favor that charming
young lady with the love chansion,—is assured that
his voice is absolutely bewitching,—is urged to sing
a duett with the lady in pink,—can of course make
no refusal to the deaf old lady, who has been shedding
tears—would `exceedingly gratify a distinguished
amateur' by repeating that passage from
the Puritani—in short, he finds himself
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unsuspectingly, become the property of the lion-hunting
town.
As for Jeny Lind,—whose name has been, I do
not doubt, bobbing in the reader's thought ever since
he commenced the reading of this musical topic,—
there is no estimating the height to which the
Lind fever will run, by the time of her landing on
this island. Already the shirt-makers are advertising
Jenny Lind Kirtles, and we shall soon have
Jenny Lind ties, stomachers, and cuffs. Blue eyes
and light hair are more than ever rejoiced in; we
shall have before the summer is over a whole army
of Jenny Lind babies; and the nurses will take
good care to pinch the noses of the young bawlers
into the Jenny Lind shape.
As for the gentlemen, Mr. Barnum will be able
to double his Tom Thumb fortune, by selling them
scraps of Jenny's old shoes for love charms; and
if Mr. B. is properly grateful for this suggestion, I
shall expect a generous heel-tap from him, on my
own score.
Fashionable lions are to be found in plenty:
they are those you will read of, Fritz, in your fashionable
weekly, as `leaders of the ton,' `distinguished
patrons of the Opera,' eminent foreigners,
or French or Italian noblemen. They are of course
cordially hated by all shabby genteel people, and
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are treated with marked indifference at the hands
of such as, by sensible conduct, and independent
action, are placed beyond the need of any lion favors.
These lions, however, are in great demand,
and have been the making of a great many unfortunate
belles, and witless coxcombs. They are
not supposed to be engaged in any other pursuit,
than simple study of the savoir-faire, or what
amounts to much the same thing, the far niente. If,
however, they lend their faculties to verse, music,
or painting, it is understood to be only in the form
of accomplishment — an accomplishment which,
however doubtful in its merit, will be sure to bring
down a great clatter of golden, and most disinterested
praises from all whose position is uncertain.
If housekeepers, these lions live in fashionable
streets, and keep fashionable hours. They will
not be guilty of any such stupidity as allowing an
Irish servant maid to attend the door-bell: they
will insist on reception-days,—first, because it
gives opportunity to shine in their own sphere, before
numerous admirers; and next, because they
may be sure of having their chair in the best possible
light—the stupid books all out of sight, the
little poodle in a clean ribbon, and their man Fidkins
in his best white gloves;—and there will be no
possible chance of their being mortified by the
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stupid Irish nurse rushing down stairs, with the
baby in her arms, to see who is calling—simply
because on that day the key is turned upon the
nursery door.
Their topics are fashionable topics: the Hague
street matter is commented on in a sad, sad way,
very much as fashionable clergymen talk of the
destitute heathen of Polynesia. They never walk
Broadway at unfashionable hours; and the color
of their equipage will give the cue to a large portion
of the equipage-driving town. A hint in the
Paris correspondence of the Courrier, as translated
by an eminent Journalist, will lead to the selling
of their bays, and the spanning together of black
and gray. A marriage will be negotiated in the
best Paris style; and it will be announced by an
amiable penny-a-liner, who has been kindly smuggled
into their punch-room, on a reception-day, as
a high-life marriage, in which the beauty and
grace of the young bride was only equaled by the
elegance, and fashionable contour of the distinguished
and fortunate bridegroom.
It should be said, however, in justice to the
class, that no lions are more innocent than fashionable
lions; they are not ill-tempered, or savage;
they are the most good-natured lions that can
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possibly be imagined; their roar would never `frighten
the Duchess.'
As much, however, cannot be said of the critical
lion; he is a useful attaché to old ladies, to the
editorial corps, and young authorlings. He sneers
at mere literary lions, and boasts of having
given them their rank; he is cheek by jowl with
the publishers, and is perfectly au courant of all
that is transpiring in the literary world.
He dashes out opinions upon pictures, statuary,
and music, as freely as upon books;—pushes his
name liberally into print, and wears an air of such
recondite observation as astonishes and perplexes
young authors and school-girls. He mixes his
pills of praise with such chemical tact, that a little
irritant will go down with the lump,—just enough
to inflame the mucous membrane of the vanity,
which lines the whole stomach of an author,—and
so, keeps the poor dog mindful of the power and
agency of the druggist.
He is of course familiarly acquainted with everybody
who is worth knowing, and is on terms of intimacy
with vast numbers of extraordinary men.
He assumes an air of high dignity at small literary
soirees, is very patronizing toward young authors
who are beginning to be talked about, and will
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[figure description] Page 127.[end figure description]
even condescend to dine with them (at their expense).
He affects something of a foreign air, and
may perhaps boast, though it be only through books,
of foreign cultivation.
He is coy of commending American success,
whether in music or letters, simply because his
much boasted principles of taste are not inherent
and sound; and because he trembles greatly lest
their suggestions should carry him counter to the
courtly charts of foreign importation. Thus
while he professes himself a patron, he is in fact
the worst enemy to true republican endeavor.
It is this, my dear Fritz, that I want most to
stigmatize—this coy-stepping, fearful, England-worshiping
spirit of American criticism! It is a
base habit of measuring everything by the standards
of the old world,—which may be great, indeed, but
great only by their association with the old world
fallacies. In taste, in ease, in grace, in a cultivated
idlesse, and in all the appliances which go to make up
life an amusement, and not a peril and a work, I
grant you, Messieurs critics, that the old world leads
us, by very much; yet surely therein lies no reason
for relaxing the effort to create in our social life, our,
literary opinions, and our more earnest action, an independence
of things European. Are we not, under
God, the administrators of a grand political, and
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even social experiment; and shall we not have pride
enough to reckon successes by their agreement
with the great principles of freedom and equality—
of manly dignity, and individual earnestness,—
rather than the facitious standards which belong
to an older, and what we righteously deem a false
system of polity? Let us not bow down to courts,
though we have warmed our vanities in their
blaze; and let us not bespeak courtly sanction,
though it rise like sweet incense in our nostrils.
When shall we cease to be provincial in our tastes
and judgments, and begin to be American, and
earnest?
But—revenons à nos lions.
The literary lion is of somewhat casual and accidental
celebrity; a few, indeed, of large growth, are
much in request, and will command, at all times,
very full salons. The growth of the lesser ones is
something curious in its way, and worthy to be
set before you, Fritz.
The prospective lion must be supposed to have
written a book, or perhaps to have edited a book, or
if not this, at the very least,—to have written a
preface for a book. He must bespeak early the
friendly services of those sly old paragraphists who
live in remote corners of the town, and who are employed
for a `reasonable' compensation, as
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supernumeraries in the offices of the journals. He will expect
this in most instances, by sending a copy of the
new book to the old gentleman, `with the kind
regards of his unknown, and humble friend, the
author.'
Upon this, spliced with a mug of punch and a
cigar, the young lion may count upon a complimentary
line or two, which his private friends, if
properly advised, will be studious to promulgate in
every possible way. A huge placard bearing the
title of the book, and the name of the new author,
will be hung in a prominent place at the shop doors.
His literary friend whom he has invited to dine,
and whom he has pushed into remarkable good
humor, with a bottle of Heidsieck, writes a captivating
little paragraph for a prominent journal,—
naïvely wondering who this new and rising author
can be, and intimating in a most delicate, and
scarce perceptible way, that he has a brilliant career
of prosperity, and heroism fairly dawned upon him.
The Mrs. Leo Hunters are now fairly put upon
the scent, and address rose-colored notes to distinguished
editors, asking the pleasure of their
company, and begging that they will introduce to
them the new author who has been so highly commended.
The new author has now only `to help
himself,' and without further effort becomes enrolled
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[figure description] Page 130.[end figure description]
upon the zoologic list. He is presented as the
writer of that `charming book,' and our lady
patroness has a prettily-contrived compliment in
store for the gentleman who has `beguiled so
sweetly her hours of ennui!'
The lion, at this early stage, should not forget
how to blush; indeed, it would be well to—positively
blush,—bow,—be very glad,—be very sorry it is
no better,—regret that it was carelessly written,—
express boldly the opinion that it was not intended
for publication,—disclaim the distinction of authorship,
&c., &c.
At all which the lady patroness will rally him with
very tender and approving smiles; and introduces
him successively to Mrs. Mulkins, who is a charming
old lady, of extraordinary literary taste; to Miss
Bidkins, a poetess of very great grace; to a greenspectacled
old gentleman, who looks very astute,
and says very cutting things, in order to inspire
the young lion with a proper degree of awe;—to a
distinguished foreigner, who is bien charme to
make the acquaintance of the author of—(he forgets—
ne se souvient pas de nom, for which he asks
a thousand pardons);—to a lovely little girl, who
looks languishingly at our author's moustache, if
he has one, or his eyebrow, if he is without; and
lastly to a decayed spinster or two, who express
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[figure description] Page 131.[end figure description]
themselves very extravagantly in admiration of his
work, and go on to quote some lines from Lord
Byron, which of course the young author is very
familiar with.
The lions of a month or two longer standing, will
meet him with a little hauteur, which by degrees
will wear off into an eminently patronizing manner.
Miss Sibdilkins will beg the honor of his company
on a certain evening, that she may introduce
him to an eligible young lady, who has been in
raptures with his book.
Corner conversations of very young ladies will
centre very naturally on the new lion; and though
I can hardly hope to throw the grace of their lively
bon mots into my serious page, yet, Fritz, you shall
be tempted with an echo.
“Isn't he handsome?” says one.
“Not handsome, but then so intellectual! I
wonder if he is married?”
“No, they say not.”
“What a forehead!”
“— Yes, and lip!”
“— And such eyes!”
“— And then his nose!”
“— Yes, and his chin!”
“And such a dear moustache!”
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“And what dear stories he tells about those African
girls!”
“— And those naked Islanders!”
“— That sweet little Alice!”
“— And those grisettes!”
“— And those Spanish ladies!”
“How they must have been in love with him!”
“I shouldn't wonder; but do you know they
say”— (and she whispers something about dissipation—
wild fellow—at which they put their handkerchiefs
to their faces, and turn their eyes up to
the ceiling.)
“Oh, I don't believe it,” says one.
“Besides so far away,” says another.
“I wish I knew him; will you introduce me?”
“Yes; but then—you know—that dear Strinkiski—
you will introduce me?”
On a moderate computation, Fritz, I am assured
that the number of literary lions reaches five or
six a season; after which period of zoologic eminence,
the greater portion sink into comparative
obscurity, and sustain a miserable and precarious
existence between newspaper paragraphs and tailors'
bills.
A most abominable feud exists, as I am told,
among all classes of these lions, and I am credibly
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informed that there is not so much as a pair of
them, who are not pawing, and roaring at each
other. They seem to delight in pulling out each
other. They seem to delight in pulling out each
other's manes; and as for anything like literary
amity, or cohesion, they are as far removed from
it, as from an International Copyright, or from any
really manly effort to better the condition of their
craft.
Even now I have given you no sketch of the
more prominent literary lions, and have not even
touched upon the political and extraordinary specimens.
You see, my dear Fritz, how this labor of painting
the Town-life is growing on my hands; and
there is reason to fear that this soft dalliance of the
Spring breezes will catch me half through my labors,
and lure me to a share in your country companionship.
Meantime give me your best wishes,
and splice them with a mug of your mountain ale.
Timon.
-- --
[figure description] Blank Page.[end figure description]
-- --
MARCH 7. NEW YORK. NO. 7.
“In our day, the audience makes the poet, and the bookseller the author.”
—
Shaftesbury.
“Geese were made to grow feathers, and farmers' wives to pluck
them.”
—Dr. Southey.
[figure description] Page 135.[end figure description]
I have a long letter in store for you, my country
Fritz, upon the authors and authorlings of our day;
but meantime, by way of prelude to that full orchestral
overture, I want to tell you something of
the booksellers' opinions.
The sentiment which I have taken from Shaftesbury
contains a truth, which I had not believed to
be so palpable, until I had become, in virtue of my
present vagary, a sort of book-maker myself. This
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[figure description] Page 136.[end figure description]
accident of position has brought to me a little
knowledge of the craft of book-making, and bookselling,
which is not without its value, and which
may come in from time to time, to point a moral
of my text. My anonymous character has rendered
this observation more truthful and easy; for the
shop-keepers have by no means thought it worth
their while, to withhold, from motives of delicacy or
interest, any information sought after by a plain
country gentleman, who secures their good graces
by a courteous admiration of their shelves, and occasional
purchase of a shilling pamphlet.
I have entertained myself not unfrequently by
long chats with my worthy publisher, who, as I
hold all communication with him by writing, is
quite ignorant of the identity of his gossiping customer,
with the editor of his `smart little weekly.'
He of course speaks very highly of the merits of
the Lorguette; affirms that it has created `quite
a sensation;' insists (very properly) upon the high
moral tone of both paper and author, and is quite
confident that it will have its effect in improving
the tone of the New York society. Like a shrewd
man, he of course varies his tactics with the parties
he has to serve;—to a young lady, he dialtes
upon the piquancy of the sketches of high life
which the paper contains, and piques her curiosity
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by pointing out, with a knowing wink, certain initials,
and blank allusions, which he recommends
to her especial attention.
To an old lady, he either talks of the serious and
moral caste of the affair—as being a very proper
matter to be placed in the hands of children—or he
commends in vivid terms its stores of gossip and
scandal. To an old gentleman of literary habits,
he enlarges upon the finish of the style, and the
clear and bold character of the type. To young
gentlemen of a rakish appearance, he hints that
they may find in it touches upon etiquette which
will prove diverting. To crities, he commends his
paper as fair game, contenting himself with the
moderate praise—that it is `worth their reading.'
He further amuses one by the sincere and
manly air with which he denies all knowledge of
the author; and on my remarking casually, that I
was a stranger in the town, he commended the
work particularly to my notice, as giving a very
fair and just view of the town-life and habits; and
he begged leave to say to me further, that he had
no doubt, for his own part, that it was the production
of a man of considerable mark in the literary
world,—and that all the statements to the contrary
in the paper itself, he was compelled to look upon
as `sheer gammon.' I evinced my agreement
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[figure description] Page 138.[end figure description]
with his opinion, and my gratitude for his compliment,
by buying an entire set, and by entering my
name for all the future numbers, which he told
me with an air of authority, would amount to at
least twenty.
Another bookseller thought the chief objection to
the work was its size; twenty pages of matter,
now-a-days, is so mere a trifle in the book-world,
that it is not easy to find a man who is willing to
undertake the reading of so small a quantity—
much less at the cost of a shilling. He thought if
the author could be induced to increase the matter
by half, and reduce the price to sixpence, it might
prove a profitable thing—to the publishers. As to
the author's additional labor, he seemed to regard
it, as most publishers do, very much like so much
vapor, or wind (I fling you here, Fritz, the handle
for a witticism, at my cost), which was only to be
thought of, in connection with the capacity of the
cylinder, or vessel, which the kindness of the publisher
was to furnish for containing it.
He compared the Lorgnette, in this view, with
one of the flashy novels of some two hundred pages,
at two and sixpence; and with an enormous weekly,
containing, as he said, fourfold the matter,
for the small sum of six cents.
Another bookseller, of large experience in his line,
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[figure description] Page 139.[end figure description]
thought the paper altogether too quiet for the spirit
of the day. `If,' said he, `these sketches had
been written in the style of `Napoleon and his Marshals,
' or Mr. Poe's works, or even of the `Monk's
Revenge,' they would have been in great demand:
The public taste wants, just now, high spicing—a
great deal of ginger and mustard; and if the writer
had ventured to be a little more severe, and made
personal attacks, or even given personal descriptions
like those in the elegant summer correspondence
of the Express newspaper, with dashes
thrown in for vowels, there would have been no possible
doubt of his success.'
Another thing, he very kindly told me, which
went much against my letters, was the evidently unbefriended
state of the author. `He doesn't seem,'
he told me, `to have secured the good offices of a
single journal, or to have a good-natured paragraph-writer
in the whole town clique;—of course he can
hardly hope for any puffs. Depend upon it, sir,
these little puffs are the making of books now-a-days,
as much as advertisements are the making of
pills, or `bosom-friends' the making of women. The
publisher might mend the matter somewhat, if he
would enclose a curt little notice to several of the
journals, with a long advertisement, or a small bank
note—but that is his concern. Moreover, a literary
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adventurer, as this fellow appears to be, is fair game
for the whole tribe of critics to peck at, and no editor
thinks it worth his while to say a good word for
a person that nobody knows. Good opinions are
not so cheap now-a-days, as to be hazarded without
an equivalent, either in money or flattery.'
`If,' said a publisher whom I happened to have
known in the country, `this author, who seems to
be a handy fellow with his pen, would make up a
dashing book of travels in some new country, such
as the Rocky Mountain Region, or along the Guatimala
shores, I have no doubt but that it would
meet with a fair sale, and I should not object under
suitable guarantees, to undertake the work of publishing.
' On my hinting that possibly the writer
might not be familiar with those regions, he answered
that it made but very little difference;—that in
fact, one half of the more popular books of travel,
just now, were made up by persons who had never
visited the localities described,—that it was only
necessary to make the general features and geography
correct,—that, in short, the Universal Gazetteer
and Morse's Cerrographic Maps afforded
sufficient data for a man of proper genius to make
a reputation in that line. The old class of writers,
who dealt stupidly in facts, he informed me, were
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now quite given up, and were not worth consideration.
Even the soberer subjects of History, he told
me, must be re-vamped in some tasty way, and all
the little tittle-tattle of the times, if it could only
be seized hold of, would go farther to make a history-writer
great, than all those leading political
facts which used to be considered essential to the
very name of history. And he instanced in this
connection Mr. Parley, Mr. Abbott, and even Prof.
Frost, who, by proper attention to this habit of
the popular mind, had achieved immense reputation,
and what was still more rare—indeed almost
unknown with the whole race of American writers—
very considerable incomes.
A popular publisher of startling pamphlets, has
conveyed to me privately, the suggestion of putting
my periodical into more popular shape, by introducing
some extravagant diablerie upon the cover,
printing in blue and crimson, and by giving more
details of private life than I have yet ventured
upon; and he hinted that if it could be made up
in the literary style of a late pamphlet, the `Rich
Men of New York,' with a little of scandal interspersed,
in what he was pleased to term my `very
readable style,' it would be much more to my
credit, and he would engage to take three
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hundred copies of each number off my publisher's
hands.
Of course, my dear Fritz, I should be very ungrateful
not to be anxious to please the booksellers,
who are so full of their friendly suggestions, and
who are so clearly anxious to please me. But as
the gaining of a little money is not so much my
object, as the gratification of a curious desire I am
possessed of, to say whatever my humor disposes
me to say—in my own way, at my own time, and
at my own length—I shall hold on very pertinaciously
to my present system, until my letters are
done. Meantime, however, I would not object to
proposals, coming from respectable publishers, with
suitable references, for entering during the summer
upon a two-volume book of travels in Ethiopia, or
along the Upper Mississippi—a short, didactic
homily upon the `Rochester Knockings,'—`Unpublished
Poems of John Milton, by his great-grandson,
' or `Astounding developments connected with
the life of Q—n V-ct-r-a!'
Do not think, Fritz, that I am disposed to misjudge
the bounty, or the literary acumen of most
of our town-publishers. Not a more charitable
body of men, in their way, than our publishers
and booksellers, are to be found in the world; and
the number of authors who are maintaining from
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day to day a subsistence upon their benevolence, is,
I am told, past all computation.
It has even been suggested by the refined and
elegant of our town (and the suggestion does even
more credit to their heads, than to their hearts),
that a committee of the most respected authors,
with Dr. Griswold at their head, be named, to erect
some suitable testimonial to a well-known publishing
house of C— Street;—to commemorate their
Herculean and most self-denying efforts, in encouraging
a taste for an elegant and refined literature;
and in creating, by their unwonted and most praiseworthy
attentions, an esprit du corps among American
authors, which has given birth to a pure and
a manly spirit in our indigenous literature.
A design, which would not be improperly committed
to the genius of the distinguished architect
of the late Bowling Green fountain,[2] might embrace
a colossal statue of a prominent member of
the house, with one hand clasping to his bosom the
Wandering Jew, and James' last novel, and with
the other raining down gold upon the Bryants and
the Sedgewicks;—while at the watch-fob, in the
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nature of a charm, might hang a copy of `Harper's
Pictorial Bible.'
An inscription might be written on the pedestal,
rendered classical by Dr. Anthon, but spelt according
to Webster in the vernacular:—
THIS HIGH MONUMENT
is bilt by the genius of america, to honor
The Most Distinguished Actor
on the theater of american letters.
Mundo mater librorum fecundissima,
Nobis nutrix verborum liberrima.
“Non possebat enim rumores ante salutem;
Ergo postque magisque nune gloria claret!”[3]
But not to a single house should all such honor
be due; generosity and literary kindliness are universal
in the profession; and dozens of impoverished
publishers are understood to be the martyrs of
books, whose authors are dining sumptuously every
day. Is no new Horatius Flaccus to be found?
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Will not the author of `Liberty's Triumph' make
an ode in honor of our Mæcenases?
To this topic, my dear Fritz, we will recur at
our leisure.
“Why, if thou never wast at court, thou never saw'st good manners;
if thou never saw'st good manners, then thy manners must be wicked;
and wickedness is sin, and sin is damnation.”
—Touchstone.
I have not as yet, Fritz, given you a look at
what passes for the nucleus of much talk, many
amiable newspaper quarrels, and very erudite criticism,—
I mean the Opera. It was, I must admit,
with a little pardonable vanity, and perhaps
finesse, that I put upon my cover the name of
`Opera-goer;' knowing very well that without
such passport to fashionable salons, scarce a single
number of my paper would be sold. But since
the suspicion, as I learn through my publisher, is
now afloat, that John Timon is in fact no Opera-goer
at all, and is only making pretences toward a
fashionable distinction, which does not at all belong
to him, I must do away with it at once, by
placing you within the doors. And I may tell
you, Fritz, that to be placed within those doors, either
as critic, belle, or spectator, is a circumstance
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which would greatly help you out in any intentions
you might have upon New York society.
To be an Opera-goer, is in fact a sort of distinction,
which very few can afford to be without; and
nothing but extraordinary distinction, a very reputable
name, or superior attainments, can in any
way balance a neglect of the Opera-house. There
is a charm in the very name of Opera-goer, to
all who are in search of eligible young men;
and a seat secured by a bachelor, or a box of
a regular subscriber, are points d' appui which
nothing but the most gross inattention can fail
to render efficacious, in securing a respectable
position among those who guide us, in matters of
taste, etiquette, and morals.
At the same time it is a distinction which must
be coyly ventured on; and a little undue haste in
posting one's self thus far, has sometimes subjected
the unfortunate aspirant to most invidious abuse.
Thus a grocer, upon the eve of rising above his
business, and making a stir with equipage, and
balls, should by no means venture at once upon
Opera-going: it is too hasty a step, and will induce
remark about his knowledge, or appreciation
of the music, that if he be at all sensitive, may
provoke him to a retort, which would be social
death;—or to a relinquishment of endeavor, which
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would, of course, forever debar his girls from an
entrance upon the social platform. He should
gain, by coy means, a little street position in the
first place, and should endeavor to win respectable
opinions by bounteous suppers, or by heavy subscriptions
to popular charities—such as the Washington
Monument, a Dickens ball, or contributions
to political roués who make successful speeches;
and after a winter or two of this management, well
backed up by plenty of German music teachers,
and a pew in Grace Church, he may safely venture
on securing a pretty loge, and taking it to
his daughters, three times a week, arrayed in the
prettiest of Martel's beetle head-dresses.
A bachelor has the same observance to keep in
mind; and without some such position as membership
of the New York Club, or sometimes driving
a tandem, or invitation to Mrs. J.'s parties, or at
least a fair place on Mr. Browne's roll of `admissibles'
may give him, it would be quite unsafe to
make the Opera-venture. He would inevitably be
set down, either as a curious music-lover from the
country, or some poor starveling of a critic, and
not receive the notice of so much as a single opera-glass.
At the same time, it may be said generally that
the subscription to an opera-box is a safe venture
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in its way, and will, under favourable circumstances,
do more to establish a man's position upon
the town, than any subscription for the building of
a church, or the very largest of private, and quite
ignoble charities.
Such absurd, and unnecessary acts of benevolence
as endowing a school, or helping out of their
straits a poor family, are of very little worth in
comparison with a liberal opera support; and they
will really do no more to make a man's name respectably
known with the leaders of our ton, than
if he were to subscribe to the Church Record, or
go to morning prayers in Lent.
I could easily draw my pen over the names of
not a few unfortunate gentlemen, who, by a most
incomprehensible devotion to such indifferent matters,
and persistance in a quiet, and most unostentatious
scale of charities, have forfeited all opportunity
of securing for their wives and daughters,
however attractive they may be, high social eminence,
or even the most casual mention in the fashionable
papers, or the billiard-room of the New York
Club. Such men sin, too, with their eyes wide
open; and if they lose caste and social position, the
loss will doubtless be rendered more harassing by
the conviction that Mr. Maretzek, his troupe, and
their newspaper admirers, have, with a generosity
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and foresightedness which do them honor, placed
within their reach, at a small cost, every hope of
achieving eminence.
Indeed, the Opera company, and above all, the
managers, may be regarded as missionaries, who
have, with a disinterestedness and love of souls,
most commendable, left the attractions and luxuries
of European Society, to come to this land of
almost Pagan socialism; and they are here putting
forth their best efforts in a variety of ways, to save
us from our lost condition, and to bring us nearer
to the elevated plane of fashion, morals, liberality,
and taste, which they have left behind them.
They find too, fortunately, not a few, who are
willing to take them by the hand, and cheer them
in their undertaking—nay, to give them the aid of
little piquant paragraphs of praise, which go
forth like so many gospels of mercy, to redeem us
from our social barbarism, and to gather us into
the sheepfold of — Opera-goers.
Were I disposed, Fritz, to the Carlyle manner, I
might exclaim here—What heroism! what devotion!
Music, and the love of it, high as they seem to
stand, are, I assure you, but secondary matters,
and entirely subordinate to that higher culture of
what is elegant in chit-chat, and striking in
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address, for which the Italian missionary house offers
such wonderful facilities. Where can a man find
a more lavish display of the beauties with which
Providence has adorned the faces and figures of the
sex? where a more delectable interchange of pleasant
and instructive conversation? where can a
man gain easier an exalted position upon the social
gradus? where can he put off better the air of his
shop, and the taint of his shop-keeping ancestry?
where will he have better opportunity of studying
the anatomy, not only of the social life, but of poitrinal
development and action? where else can a
man look for patterns of moustache, head-dress, or
gloves? where else, in short, can be found such a
theatre for observing the successive advances of
town-society, in taste, refinement, and all manner
of polite accomplishment?
The boudoir, in the comparison, is but a green-room
to the stage; the salon, but the field for little
exeursionary forays; the ball-room, a recreative
play-ground; and the old-fashioned parlor-circle,
but the arena for sensible stupidities and frightful
proprieties.
Fritz, my dear fellow, when you come up to
town, take a box at the Opera! You will gain position,
refinement; and by assiduous attendance,
you will acquire a cultivation that no mere
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book-reading can blunt; and a bien-seance that all the
good sense in the world will be utterly unable to
subdue.
If you are painting now upon the retina of your
remembering eye, a vision of those great Italian
Opera-houses, such as San Carlo, where tier above
tier of eager ones, half shielded by the façade of
their dimly-lighted loges, are listening to the music,
or receiving their evening salutations,—let me
beg you to mend the image. Our Opera-house is
constructed more especially to see, and to be seen;
such quiet hearing-place as a box of the fourth tier
at La Scala, would pass without a call from American
Opera-goers.
The Italian Opera had probably (as the biographers
say) its origin in Italy; at least we have a right
to infer it, from the language in which it is usually
recited. It seems a natural exponent of the characte
and fancies of a poetic, passionate, musical,
and idle people. You will remember, Fritz, our
earnest admiration, years ago, of the recitativo of
the street-singers in the long Via Toledo; and our
listening by a midnight moon, in the city of Bologna,
to the musical patrols;—scarce less enchanting
to the imagination of a foreigner, than the
leaning towers, the sausages, or the Guido pictures
of that old city of gloomy arcades. It was but
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natural that the Northern cities of Europe should,
for the gratification of their traveled and luxurious
population, and above all, their courts, intreduce
the Southern music, and should secure, by
their superior wealth, the first performers. Hence
it is, that the Italian Opera finds its best presentment
in Vienna, St. Petersburg, Paris, and London;
that is to say, the primi singers are superior in
those cities, while the chorus maintains its excellence
in the south.
With the importation of other foreign luxuries
and habits to the American metropolis, the Opera
could not fail to make its appearance. It commended
itself singularly to those who had brought
back from the Old World a love of its peculiarities
and courtly tastes—saying nothing of the few who
would regard it as a pleasant souvenir of musical
intoxication. From its very artificial nature, it
would serve as the germ for a new amusement, to
such as had exhausted their merely natural inclinations;
its enjoyment, or pretended enjoyment,
implied too, the possession of a cultivated and
artificial taste, which would lift it above the level
of ordinary and popular appreciation; and this
would specially commend it to many worthy democratic
citizens, who are forever on the lookout for
any pardonable means of rising above the common
-- 153 --
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atmosphere, and for breathing an air whose rarefied
state should give a pleasing delirium to their
senses.
Wealth, too, which had tried all the vulgar
means of manifestation in houses and plate, was
anxious to seize on a new medium of representing
itself in alliance with what was dignified as an
art. Young ladies, not lacking attractions, and
not having the entrée of the salons where they
might shine, could at the Opera, find a common
ground of display, with the most high-bred. Whole
families could rise from obscurity upon the wings
of subscription tickets; and pining street beauties
enter upon a new life of head-dresses, of negligés,
hoods, and pink-lined cloaks. Middle-aged gentlemen,
too, whose position was indefinable, from some
unfortunate prejudice attaching to birth or employment,
could now appear in ball costume, and daintiest
of neck-ties, and do the faint execution of forty-year-old
bucks upon the belles of the hour. Illmatched
ladies, moreover, condemned to the society
of such rheumatic husbands as could not venture
to balls or concerts, might now secure their private
boxes, and be ogled and admired by whomever they
wished.
It was, in fact, a charming device for measuring
our refined, democratic society, by general
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observation. But as it was to become in some sort the
nurse, or directress of social education, it was
deemed advisable to drop the ballet which had uniformly
belonged to the Opera in Europe;—so that
tender nerves should not be rudely shocked, and
that the amusement might thus become as pure
and wholesome, as it was natural and enjoyable.
There were no provisions, however, in regard to
low-necked dresses and strong lights; the Homeric
women, or `high-bosomed,' being reckoned superior
to the ballatrice, or long-legged.
At first, I am told, the Opera had its locale in a
comparatively humble situation, where it was exposed
to the inroads of common people, and where
the ton of the hour were horrified by the presence
of a great many ignorant country merchants, from
the neighboring hotels,—men who very sensible
and business-like in their way, had neither the requisite
finish of dress, or the right mode of listening,
to adorn such shrine of taste. This defect has
been remedied by placing the Opera-house upon a
more elevated footing; it is removed to a fashionable
quarter, and a special regimen of dress (that
of the Queen's Theatre, London) has been adopted;
without which, it is now generally understood, that
the finer Italian music can be but very faintly appreciated.
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These means and appliances have made the town
Opera a most noticeable matter. Three times a
week, during the winter, its sofas, music, and light
have brought together all that was supposed to be
lovely, or learned in our town. There may be, indeed,
good, common creatures for household purposes,
or such women as would make most excellent
mothers without the Opera doors; but they cannot
aspire to that apex of our social pyramid, which
can be scaled only through the agency of our most
devoted patrons of Italian song.
I have amused myself often, Fritz, in running
my glass over the interested faces which grace this
temple of our social worship. Admirers and ardent
lovers of the music, of course they all are; but
their loves do, somehow, wonderfully vary. You
might see in one box some little fair-faced girl,
not too modest,—just having left behind her at her
school,—amare, the Paradise Lost, and Porquet's
Tresor,—blush into our town-world under the daintiest
of head-dresses, and with the most naïve attention
to the scenes and drapery. She can scarce
manage that huge lorgnette; but its handling has
been well practiced; her glove is a fit; and if she
do not see plainly, she at least seems to see. Her
mamma, with eager eye, cultivated by such optic
study, calculates, with motherly discretion, the
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range of the various lenses that turn that way. She
slyly pulls the dress of her daughter if the poor
thing is disposed to break into raptures at the music,
when Mrs. J— is only smiling. She chides
her, too, if neglectful or inattentive, when the signal
has been given by one of Forti's die-away efforts,
for enthusiastic applause.
Yonder you will see a fresh aspirant for social
honors, in the best of Miss Lawson's `fixing,'
studying—not the scene, but the conduct of a pair
of old stagers. She is laying up in her memory,
from observation of every fold of a lace mantilla,
from every swoop of the neck, and from every manoeuvre
with the glass, a set of rules which, on future
nights, will stand her in great stead. Another,
not familiar with the atmosphere, but too naïve
to be studying dress or attitude, is very fearful lest
she, in some way, offend against the practices of
that august court. She scarce dares smile at Sanquirico,
for she sees a sober expression on the face
of the elegant lady of an adjoining box; and when
she is near dying with admiration, she blushes to
find that her companion is talking behind her fan
with the gentleman of the long moustache. She
wonders, indeed, overmuch what she ought to admire;
she wishes heartily she knew; but for her
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life she cannot imagine what are the rules of the
Opera taste.
An old gentleman, the father of a family, who is
not an habitué, but who has come to have an eye
upon what he terms his wife's vanities, will sadly
mortify his family and family connections, by yawning
in the corner of his box. In vain the distressed
wife will pinch his elbows, or put on an indignant
scowl; in vain the daughter will look appealingly,
and murmur reproachfully, `Why, papa!' — the
poor man turns to the stage, trying hard to smile—
to look serious—to admire, as he gets the cue from his
wife's glances; and he casts a timid eye to the
boxes to see if his gaucherie is observed. Yet he is
patron of Italian music, and will furnish his wife
with an heraldic panel to her carriage.
The travelled admirer who is of course very artistic
in her admiration, will assume an easy carelessness,—
be very indifferent when there is show
of pathos,—play with her lorgnette at a stroke of
humor, and whisper in a languishing way to her
companion, when the singers have achieved their
greatest triumph,—that it is only comme ça.
The old ladies who are looking out for new eminence
in these capitally-contrived boxes,—now that
their ball-age is utterly gone by,—and who know
as much of Italian as of music, and as much of
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both, as Sancho Panza knew of temperance, or
Faublas of chastity,—will study pretty disposition
of colors, and shades, and make their old eyes
blaze anew with the opera gas, and coquetry.
The critic who is treasuring in his brain particular
Italian expressions, and who cons his copy to
learn the orthography, will look wise as an owl,—
sneer when the vulgar old gentleman yonder is
patting his fat hands in clamorous applause, and
will listen intently, and with an artist cock of the
eye, to the more delicate execution—which to the
mass of our earnest Opera-goers (and perhaps to
the critic himself) is as much Greek, as the Lillibullero
of my uncle Toby.
As for critical appreciation and remark, it resolves
itself after a few nights, and the issue of a
few Journal leaders, into an established set of
opinions, which do not vary to the end. Thus
Bertucca, who has Italianized a French name and
a French habit of song, is the `wooden Bertucca.'
Beneventano, with a voice windy as a blacksmith's
bellows, is the stout swaggerer, who makes love like
a butcher, but whose stature fills up classically the
scenes. Forti, with nice ear, and artistic appreciation,
is a trifle Jewish,—yet with no Hebraic volume
in his lungs;—not handsome enough to be
admired, nor ugly enough to call out raptures from
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eccentric ladies. Truffi is the Divine—the goddess
of the scenes, whose action is the worship of the
critics, and whose singing will cause a delirium in
the pit. As for Benedetti, his retirement has been
honored with more sighs of regret, than ever followed
the best missionary exposé of heathen Polynesia.
John Rogers at the stake (in the primer)
was nothing to the martyred Benedetti! The new
Thaddeus of Warsaw!—for seasons to come, ditties
will be pointed with his name,—recorded honors
will gather round his memory, and lady-sighs will
thicken over him!
These, our Italian Divinities, my dear Fritz,
have been the centres of more active conversation,
and the subjects of livelier debate in salon, at ball,
and upon the street, than all the political heroes of
the hour—not excepting the sick lion of the South,
now mumbling like Dagon in his cave, over the
bones of his victims.
Go where you will, if only the aspiring beauties
of our town be present, and the Italian aperient
shall open the lady-talk, and lovers paying their
vows in operatic fragments, shall sigh,—Non so,
perché non posso odiarti!
It would be impossible, indeed, to compute the
amount of influence in our town, flowing from that
company of singers who enjoy the presidence of
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[figure description] Page 160.[end figure description]
Maretzek. All the clergy influences combined,—
the anti-dramatic counterblasts of the Tabernacle,—
the secessions of distinguished doctors,—the
newspaper letters of a bishop,—the pro tempore
harangues of the Head of the Pilgrims, and all the
fish-bladders of the Ecclesiologists, are dust and
chaff, compared with the prevailing animus that
enlivens the body of our opera-worshippers! Victoria
is scarce so much the subject of talk in the
court circles of London, as are our heroes of the
Astor-place among the `leaders of our ton.'
Carlyle says our people have not contrived yet
any great, new, social idea;—let him sweat us out
of the mazes of his contorted words, a greater one
than this very Musico-socio-operatic Idea, belonging
to our town and ton; and if he can do it, I for one,
Fritz, will link myself to the herd of his admirers,—
who, though capital fellows, with their inverted optics,
to reduce every existing system to apparent
confusion, are yet, like their great demi-god, the
weakest of weaklings, to devise any tangible, or
practical method of Reform.
Timon.
eaf279v1.n2[2] This chef-d'æuvre consisted of a magnificent structure of native
American rocks—arranged with an eye to the picturesque—over which
the waters constantly bubbled, in most graceful and unceasing jets. It
was found to leak badly, however, and has been taken down.
eaf279v1.n3[3] A little latitude of translation, Fritz, is allowable in our day; were
it otherwise, I think I should not be very wide of the intent, that scholars
would put upon the couplet, in rendering it by this
doggerel:—
He didn't reckon honor so highly as his purse,
So now there's not a man, whose honor shines the worse!
-- --
MARCH 14. NEW-YORK. NO. 8.
“Il vaut miêux souffrir d'être au nombre des foux,
Que du sage parti se voir seul contre tous.”
—Moliere.
[figure description] Page 161.[end figure description]
It is the mode for periodicals of credit and ability,
to give from time to time upon their covers,
the `Opinions of the Press.' But from these opinions
are generally carefully eliminated all such as
count against the merit, or success of the publication.
Now as I wish to be à la mode, Fritz, and
am at the same time too thoroughly a foe to all
sorts of quackery, to deceive the public by expurgated
notices, I shall give you upon the cover of
the present paper, a taste of the opinions of
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[figure description] Page 162.[end figure description]
Journals:—thanking most cordially those who have
done me the honor of commendation, and entertaining
at the same time, a most respectful sympathy
for those who have `not seen the point.' My particular
favor is due to the erudite editor of the
Express, who has furnished me with a sarcophagus
in his columns, and a pretty epitaph from his
French reading; a more successful undertaker in
all literary matters could hardly be wished for;—
his types make a fitting entombment, and his comment
a proper shroud.
“Cætera de genere hoc, adeo sunt multa, loquacem,
Delassare valent Fabium.—”
Hor. i. Sat. 1. 16.
Others like these are left, enough to tire
A Timon's pen, or all the Scalpel's fire.
Our neighbors next door, some of whom I occasionally
see in the back-court, hanging out a bit or
two of mock Mechlin to dry, or a crushed petticoat
to be blown into proper rotundity, are worthy people,
of whom my landlady sometimes borrows a
half a pound of tea, or a little `spirits,' to tincture
the sauce for the apple-dumpling. I had expected
to meet them nearer by at one of our little parlorsoir
ées, which came off not long since. After
being presented to a very showy girl in green silk,
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who sang in bewitching style, and to an old lady
in bombazine, who had a good deal to say to me,—
about genteel education, I ventured to ask after
the neighbors. My landlady shook her head quite
seriously, and told me that though they were very
good sort of persons in their way, yet they were
`not in society.' This would not have been so
curious, if I had not remembered that the tasteful
lodger had remarked to me a few weeks back, with
a very sober, and I thought, sympathizing air, that
the landlady, though a very nice person, was `not
in society.'
The maid informs me that this tasteful lodger
`goes into society,' once or twice a week, on which
occasions there is a prodigious stir in his chamber;
the maid is running up and down stairs with hot
water and `fixings;' and the tasteful gentleman
gives very loud orders from the hall, about his varnished
boots, and the carriage. The Irish girl
dresses his wife's hair, and does the lacing; after
which she uniformly steps into the parlor to have
the landlady's opinion, which is, of course, always
highly enthusiastic.
I must say that I have long felt no little curiosity,
to ascertain what sort of society the tasteful
gentleman adorns with his presence: but not until
recently have I been gratified. Finding that the
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old dowager with whom I take an occasional ride,
was really possessed of a carriage with a small device
upon the door-panel, he volunteered one evening
last week, to introduce me `in society.' I expressed
myself charmed, and at the time appointed,
was duly ready. He gave a running glance at my
equipments, which seemed to him to be satisfactory.
We were set down at the door of a small
house, in what he said was a very respectable
street; though he had previously admonished me
that I must not look for any very great style, as the
family, though uncommonly high, were just now
rather under the weather.
I was therefore somewhat taken aback, to find,
on entering, an uncommon glare of wax candles, a
good many plaster statuettes, and some very showy
colored engravings, which the tasteful gentleman
informed me, by a whisper, were by `crack artists.'
The everlasting folding-doors, or, as the author of
Alice elegantly terms them, the bivalves were
thrown open, and disclosed the usual vista of carpet,
book-case, and arm-chairs. The last Home Journal,
an elegant book in papier-maché covers, and an
embellished copy of Tupper's Philosophy were
upon the centre-table, while a folded number of the
Express was doing duty underneath a leaky flowerpot.
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The lady of the mansion, upon my introduction,
met me with a certain assured manner of the town,
well calculated to astound and bewilder a modest
country-gentleman who was making his first entr
ée. She asked me, with a glance over her company,
if I had seen much of New York fashionable
society? and upon hearing my embarrassed denial,
was clearly disposed to cheer me up, and to treat me
with very much of that kind and pitying regard, with
which missionaries look upon unmitigated Pagans,
or as our voyaging tourists regard such Marquesans
as are ignorant of the nature and uses of petticoats.
An elegant young lady in bare arms, three
flounces, and massive gold bracelets was at the
piano; her head, set off with a wreath of green
leaves and blackberry blossoms, was thrown a little
to one side, and she was singing a fragment full
of cuori and amamti, with delicate accompaniment,
in what my hostess assured me was `most captivating
style.'
She presently rounded it off with a whirl of the
fingers over the keys,—serving very much like
those notes of exclamation, which young authors
are very apt to put at the end of what they reckon
their pretty periods. The tasteful gentleman patted
his gloves together, and declared that it was
`quite charming.' The hostess kindly offered to
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present me to Miss Thuggins, who was just now
rising from the piano-stool.
Miss Thuggins bowed graciously. I thought—
`it had been a fine day.' She thought `yesterday
was, too.' I assented cordially, and thought `it
had been an uncommon mild winter.' She thought—
`very mild, — the mildest she remembered;
though she did not remember many.'
Of course she did not remember many—how
should she? I thought `it was most spring.' She
thought it was `nearly.' I thought `from her
charming performance she must be a lover of music?
' She tossed her head prettily, and thought—
`oh, comme ça.
I thought—`she must go occasionally to the
Opera.' She thought `our box was rarely empty;'
and she asked me what I thought of Forti, and
then what I thought of Bertucca, and then—of
Beneventano, and then of Don Giovanni? And
she interspersed the questioning with pretty little
opinions which, Fritz, you will find condensed in
the last number of the Lorgnette, or sown broadcast
through the winter's file of the Home Journal.
Occasionally an Italian term or two were thrown
in, which, if my memory does not misgive me, were
not strictly of Roman pronunciation.
This topic, and the last ball at the Widges being
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duly discussed, I diverted talk to the evening, and
toward the tasteful gentleman, who I supposed `was
an old acquaintance.' `Only slight;' she had met
him she believed, but she did not think he was `in
society.' I directed attention to our hostess, and,
as in duty bound, spoke highly of her taste and
accomplishments. `Oh yes,' said Miss Thuggins,
`she's very well; I sometimes run in here on the
`Off-nights;' she's a good body, though `not much
in society.' Indeed, since her return from abroad
(there was a little interruption, and she repeated)—
since her return from abroad, she felt little relish
for most of New York Society. `Ah! indeed,'
said I, (it is well, Fritz, to counterfeit a little surprise
at any such announcement; but not too
much; you should have `half suspected it from
her manner',) `and is society so superior abroad?'
`Vastly, sir; such breeding you see, (she unclasps
a bracelet,) and the gentlemen are so polished—
so agreeable—so —' And she reclasps
her bracelet, and looks across the room with an expression
of most intense ennui.
I ventured to ask `if foreign society was accessible?
'
`Oh no; but then we had letters, (with an air
of indifference and careless dignity.) It was nothing
but dining out;—one day at the Clarendon
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with a party of friends, and then down at Greenwich
to eat white-bait, and then with a merchant
who has a bijou of a place out at Hamstead, and
then at Carleton Terrace; and in Scotland we met
Lord Somebody at an inn, and were so sociable
together—a delightful man, I think I have his antograph.
'
Judge, Fritz, of my humiliation in talking with
a lady of such extensive parts! `This Miss Thuggins,
' thought I, `must be a trump card; doubtless
one of the shining ornaments of the town society;
she has very likely learned the schottisch;
she is an admirer of Truffi; she has passable command
of French; she even limps in Italian; she
probably has her carriage—perhaps a coachman
with hat-band, and very likely a seat in Grace
Church, or even a coat-of-arms on her card, or over
her door.
I determined to risk the mention of her name to
my old dowager friend on my next ride. `Thuggins,
' said she—`Thuggins, upon my word, I don't
know her.'
`But, my dear madame, she is an extraordinary
young lady; she has a box at the Opera; she
dined at a Scotch inn with a Lord; she wears tremendous
bracelets; she talks French; she is horribly
ennuyée by New York Society.'
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`These are good points—very,' said the old lady.
`Fidkins, (pulling the check-line,) whose drab
coachman comes to the kitchen for you so often—
the rich grocer's you spoke of?'
`Thuggins, marm.'
`Oh,' said madame, `I know now—a nice girl,
I have heard, in her way; a parvenu—she is not
`at all in society.' By the way, would you like
to call with me at the Widges?'
`My dear madame,' said I, appealingly, `I should
like exceedingly to know what it is to be in `society'
in your town?'
`Justement—at the Widges, mon cher Timon, we
shall be in society.'
To the Widges we went. Tophanes happened
to be there, and came across the room to say to me,
sotto voce, `Eh, Timon, getting in here? A devilish
good place (piano) to come for suppers, but
vulgar after all; interlopers,—well posted in music
matters,—drive a good `turn-out,' but only
half a year or so in standing; and as for Monsieur,
(pianissimo,) he is a d—n scoundrel!' And he
moved off to tell madame how charmingly she was
looking, this bright spring weather.
If you expect me, Fritz, to tell you definitively,
from such observations as these, what it is to be
`in society,' you are hugely mistaken. To be in
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society is after all only a relative state of being,
and changes with your company, like the kaleidescopic
colors in a man's hand. You may meet
with warm receptions, most kindly attentions, gentle
manners, winning address, and extreme cultivation,
yet it may not be `in society.' You may
be startled with most lavish display of wealth, or
the most gorgeous of velvet cloaks, yet perhaps
`not in society.'
Impudence may set a man in society, or it may
throw him out. Goodness will never bring him
in, and it is a shabby standard of faith if among
the elect. Particular professions belong to `people
in society;' but they are in the general way, professions
without practice. The broker is dependent
on age, brain, marriage, or presumption. The
cloth-man (nothing now of coats or tailors) is subject
to the amount of cloths he may bargain for,—
whether by piece or bale. The dentist is in a most
doubtful place, hanging as it were, upon the lip of
society. The doctor (if of Divinity) passes current
like old coin which rings with a jingle, though the
device, or date of stamp cannot be made out.
The physician `in society' takes very few fees, has
few patients, (except his listeners,) is tidy, prim,
buckish, and marriageable. The bankrupt gives
good dinners, is shy of his creditors, and is a most
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excellent churchman. Authors and pastry-cooks
are of a doubtful class, depending very much on
the tastiness of their wares: a piquant sauce to a
paté, or a pair of pants to a lady Alice, will be irresistible.
Mr. B— you do not know, or care to know,
though you have met him affectionately in `society.
' Miss C— you do not know, though you
have hugged her in the waltz, and felt her breath
steaming on your cheek—it was only `in society.'
Madame is a dear, delightful old lady—but only `in
society.' Mr. D— is a man in `society;' it is for
him not only a state of being, but of action. He has
the most taking chit-chat of the Journals at his
tongue's end; he has studied Count D'Orsay's etiquette
to a fault; he wears a cravat as wide as the
wings of a turkey-cock before moulting time; he
cultivates his incipient moustache with the most
assiduous handling; he compliments old ladies for
their youthfulness, and young women for their
beauty, and ugly ones for their sweet expression;
he goes to dinners, and wins the champagne for his
stories; he goes to balls, and wins a waltz, a supper,
and a headache for his pains.
`To be in society' is not to be at home; it is not
to be domestic—nor religious, except at church, or
when talking with the clergyman's daughter. It
is to say things you do not mean; to know people
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you do not respect; to bow to those you despise;
to smile without intending it, and to live in mockery.
To `be in society' is a most extraordinary position;—
for a man, it is more than virtual death of
action, energy, or of anything worthy of his manliness.
For a woman, it is to ensure her trappings
the widest talk, her failings the largest scandal,
and her salons the greatest crowd. For a belle, it
is to push her into the best market for the poorest
bidders; it is to expose her ancle, her bust, her
features, her accomplishments, and her worth (if she
have any) to as `damned an iteration' as any in
Homer's verse!
Passons, my dear Fritz; we must not get heated
in this warm spring-time.
Tophanes has furnished me, in furtherance of
this humor, which has just now seized me, a few
transcripts from the journal of a lady `in society.'
It will I know amuse you, although it is not altogether
an artistic performance; at the same time
it does high credit to the class in which it found
its authorship. It is naïve, straight-forward, and
clearly written, without any suspicion of its being
one day laid before the public. To the present
state of popular taste, I am sure that nothing could
prove a higher commendation.
-- 173 --
“A lady's morning work: we rise, make fine,
Sit for our picture, and 'tis time to dine.”
J. Shirley.
[figure description] Page 173.[end figure description]
Wednesday.—What a sweet man that Signor
Birbone is. But then pshaw! only a teacher! I
must dress particularly well to-night; am to meet
Kawton they say—a love of a name; and one of the
most fascinating men in society. Why don't Martel
send home that crimson head-dress? It's so becoming,
the J—s say; and I haven't worn it now
these three evenings. I think my voice is good to-night.
L— has promised to urge me to sing;
hope Strinski won't offer for the accompaniment;
he is so anxious that everybody should admire his
playing, that he never has done with his interludes.
Marie is getting careless about my hair; must
give her the porte monnaie that Stiver gave me the
other day, and if Figgins sends a bouquet to-day,
will let her carry it to the Minerva. What a dull
time this Lent! and black doesn't become me at
all; I can't look solemn without giving that bad
expression to my lip.
Thursday.—Well, what a time, to be sure!
Kawton is fascinating, very. How prettily he paid
that compliment about American women, so much
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prettier than Europeans—such complexions; and
he looked very hard at my neck. (N. B. Must be
more careful about the pearl powder; Ma said
she saw it yesterday on my forehead.) And then
he polks so sweetly; I never felt easier in all my
life; I wonder if he has money? To be sure,
Mathilde says he's a great toady, but then he's a
club-man, and knows so many distinguished men, I
hardly know if I baited him enough:—to be sure,
I didn't ask him to call; but then I told him what
a delightful street this was, and that Papa said he
wouldn't live in any other—so delightful, too, to
be on a corner; surely he must remember.
Positively, I will not dance any more with that
odious Scratch. Papa says I must not treat him
rudely; he is very rich; but he waltzes so horribly,
and then his breath! As for marrying him, it's
another matter; but I needn't hurry; twenty-five
isn't very old; and I know I can catch the old fellow
any time. He is quite desperate, I am sure of
it. How I should like to stir up a quarrel between
him and F—; how they would talk!
Saw Noddle; he talks everlastingly; very well,
they say; but who wants to hear talk at a ball?
Besides, he admires every pretty girl he sees—the
puppy!
Monday.—Went yesterday to Grace with the
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Fidges—a most delightful place; hope Papa will
take a seat there; everybody listens so stupidly at
Dr. Hawks.' I do wish Strinski wouldn't talk
French to me in society; it's so embarrassing!
besides, there's no knowing who may hear you, and
you may make faults; caught myself tutoying
him the other evening, as if I had been talking to
Marie! how provoking; if it had been S—
wouldn't have cared; it might have set him on; he
is too modest.
Tuesday.—Was pale last night, but wore the
crimson head-dress, and took a seat near the scarlet
curtains. I must try and send to Paris for some
more of those gaiter boots, they are so pretty.
Marie has been trying to show me how to hold up
my dress as the French women do; it's difficult,
but then it's worth a little study.
What a handsome German teacher Miss Muggs
has got! I wonder if I had not better learn German?
I'll tell Papa that Dr. T— has recommended
it; besides, it's very well to sing snatches
from the German Opera; it gives an idea of cultivation.
I wonder where Mrs. Fidge gets that delightful
perfume, and then she never has too much;
must remember to let Marie smell me, before I go
out another evening. Miss Quiz asked me the
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other day what had become of Snap, who used
to be so attentive? Oh, I told her, we were capital
friends, better than ever,—and looked very conscious;
dare say she will think I've given him the
mitten; I do hope she will, for she is just the person
who will tell it all over town.
Thursday.—Walked up street the other day with
ex-President —. What a dear, good man! And
then such a feather to be seen walking with him.
The Hidges saw me, and looked daggers; the
Simpkins bowed two or three times; how very
friendly they are getting! I wonder if we girls
couldn't get up a class in reading with Prof. —;
they say he is so agreeable; and then it gives a
delightful chance to practice; one can ask such
funny questions, and all so honest. He isn't married
either, and if I could only get him desperate!
for they say these literary characters do get desperate;
and how delightful if he'd only propose,
and then go off in a consumption. Heigho—how
sleepy I am!
Friday.—I do wish that odious Miss Thingum
wouldn't be so familiar in the street; people will
begin to call us intimates, and I am sure she's over
forty. She's very kind, certainly, but I don't like
to invite her to my soirées, she is so matronizing
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and old maidish; I must send the carriage for her
some rainy morning, and ask her if she won't come
and pass the day.
Sister Belle is beginning to be admired; how
strange, and she only sixteen!—must insist on her
wearing plainer clothes; must tell mamma that the
hat is altogether too gay for a person of her age.
Saturday.—Went to the Opera last night; Forti
was quite divine; at least M— said so, and
it's safe to say it. Mr. D— came to our box,
and chatted for half an hour,—a horrid creature;
strange that he can't learn how disagreeable he is,
and not at all tonnish; yet they say he is very
clever—quite an ornament at Miss L—s. It's
very well though, upon the whole, to have a chat;
it relieves the uniformity of one's face; besides, if
any one asks me who it was, I can say,—oh, he
says such clever things!
Saw Stroskinski in the Miggs' box; what a
moustache he has got! Must ask them to present
me; they say he is all the rage.
Tuesday.—Met the Miggs' at the party;—promised
to introduce Stroskinski, but didn't, though
they danced three sets with him. I suppose Mabel
wants to keep him to herself;—I'll pay her, the
minx!
Had to dance with that little puppy, Spindle;
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couldn't refuse, because he is of good family, and
amiable as a country girl. He hasn't got a leg bigger
than a pipe-stem,—and such a beard! Mean to
cut off a little fur from the cat, and send him for a
valentine—“mon chat, Monsieur, à votre chin.”
How it helps a flirtation to drink a little champagne.
Upon my word, I carried it off capitally last
night. What little squeezes one can give a gentleman's
hand; and then the polka after two or three
glasses—upon my word, it is charming! I must
get some of those brandy lozenges Miss Fidge told
me of; she says, they go straight to one's head.
I must learn, too, some more of those tender
French expressions from Marie; it's a sweet, pretty
language; have begun to read Raphael the third
time.
Wednesday.—How handsome Bidkins is; and
rich too, they say, but so shy. Danced the polka
with him last night; told him I adored it: but he
put his arm about me as if he were handling a
Vestal—yet I leaned on him very hard; how stupid
some men are! I think he must be a Presbyterian.
I told him I was engaged for the next waltz,
and asked him if he liked waltzing. He said he
did—`rather.' I can't hook him.
I do wish I knew those Fudges; they give such
delightful parties; everybody talks about them;
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must persuade papa to go to the same watering-place
with them next summer; then I think I can
manage it, particularly if Pa takes his carriage;
I can get an introduction, and of course they won't
object to make a convenience of our carriage.
What a silly fellow Bunkum is. It's plain enough
he wants to please me, but he don't know how;—
only to think of his praising the Squids! To be
sure they are good friends of mine; but then they
are pretty, very pretty. And then, too, the idea
of disputing me about the pictures, and trying to
set me right,—the coxcomb! They say he has excellent
taste; for my part, I should like to see it.
Thursday.—Heigho—two bouquets; one from
little Fidge; what is the boy thinking of? I suppose
he's heard them talk at the club of sending
bouquets to belles; however, he is rich, and when
he grows up, will, I dare say, be good for something;—
must thank him kindly, and keep him in
tow. Besides, he is very useful; he never objects
to escort one—puts on shawls, and picks up the
pins that you drop, and will go back for your ball
slippers—oh no, it would be very ungrateful to
slight little Fidge!
As for the other bouquet, it has no card; who
can it be from? There's the handsome music
teacher, I wonder if he would dare? Well, I will
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have it in my hand when he comes, and ask him if
it isn't sweet—watch if his fingers tremble when
he takes it: and then I'll pull out a little flower
from it—a forget-me-not, if there is one—and put
it in my bosom. (Mem. to wear the open morning
dress, with lace.) The poor fellow, he'll hardly
have strength to get through his lesson! What if
he should make love to me upon the strength of it;—
how delightful!
I am not sure whether it is best to be confirmed;
Dr. H— urges me; but Miss Hicks, who is in
the best society, tells me not to be in a hurry. So
far as church attendance and devotion go, it's very
well; it offers good contrast to one's action at a
ball, and you get the good opinion of a great many
proper ladies of excellent families; but then on Ash
Wednesday, or any time in Lent, it may be very
inconvenient; mean to consult the Squids about it.
At any rate, I must buy a book of sermons to
have on a side table—get them bound up with a
little cross on the outside. I wonder if Dr. Griswold
hasn't written any good ones?
I am sure, Fritz, you will have been delighted
with this fragmentary journal; isn't it naive and
earnest? Indeed, if I had any suspicion of who
was the author, I would address her a
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[figure description] Page 181.[end figure description]
complimentary note, and insist upon being favored with further
extracts; and if she will have the kindness to
address her card, or any further communication,
to John Timon, at Mr. Kernot's bookstore, she
would confer a special favor.
I have already freely offered the use of my paper
to such persons as might feel aggrieved by any imagined
personal allusions; and it is in virtue of
this offer that I give place to a feeling letter, which
seems to have been drawn up by the counsel of the
person whose character has been unfortunately impugned.
It is needless to say, that in alluding to
Mr. Browne, (of whose name I had no knowledge
except through my friend Tophanes,) I was utterly
unconscious of doing injustice to a meritorious and
useful member of society. Far be it from me to
wound the feelings or to harm the business of any
individual whose merits are so striking and timely
as those set forth in the letter below:—least of all,
an individual whose connection with the church
should screen him from hasty or injudicious remark.
My sense of propriety, as well as what is
due to the Holy Catholic Church, would forbid.
Tophanes thinks from the style of the letter, that
it may have been drafted by a distinguished member
of the bar, Mr. B—y.
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Mr. Timon:
Sir,—In some of your papers you have made
flippant, and I think I may say, indelicate allusions
to a Mr. Browne. A gentleman bearing
that name, though differently spelled, has called
my attention to the fact, and has consulted me
(an advocate and attorney at law) upon the propriety
of instituting an action for damages.
Believing, sir, that you are not insensible to the
principles of duty and generosity, when well set
forth, I have determined to address to you this letter
of explanation and enunciation, which (if published)
will set Mr. B.'s character in the right light;
and by its publication (as mentioned above), the
said Mr. B. will consider himself reinstated in the
brilliant position which, from allusions made (as
above stated), he had reason to fear might be temporarily
(so to speak) obscured.
Mr. Browne, sir, is a man who perhaps has done
more to the advancement of society toward its
present elevated position than any other man, or
indeed than any man whatever. Mr. B. not only
possesses, by virtue of his ecclesiastical connection,
a high moral consideration, but he is also the
generous patron of very many young gentlemen
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[figure description] Page 183.[end figure description]
who, without Mr. B.'s services, would be simply
and purely—young men.
Mr. B.'s fees are moreover reasonable; he has
never over-charged, even though supplying ladies
with gentlemen of the first water; his arrangements
are ordered in the most researcha style; he
gives advice in regard to the capacity of ball-rooms,
the time of arrival, the disposition of candles, servants,
fiddlers, and hackney cabs, which few men
are capable of doing in an equally creditable manner.
Moreover, he receives with proper decorum
unattended ladies, sees to their safe delivery—from
their carriage—and closes the door upon them discreetly,
when the affair is over. He furnishes statistics
in regard to character if desired, and can
inform uninformed ladies in regard to pretensions,
expectations, dancing properties, drinking disposition,
gastronomics, and temper, of most of the
young men in society.
Few indeed could be so poorly spared from the
beau-monde; and his retirement from his station
would leave a gap that certainly no man of ordinary
capacity could fill up. In that event, sir,
which your injudicious allusions acting on a sensitive
and deserving conscience might possibly induce,
the ladies of our fashionable world would be
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[figure description] Page 184.[end figure description]
at a loss to fill up their lists, the young gentlemen
be without a patron, the carriages would stray
about like lost sheep, the servants be wayward and
fitful in their movements, and the whole charm of
our social assemblages be gone. In short, without
Mr. Browne, the balls would be without their ornaments,
and the streets without a whistle.
Picture to yourself, sir, a man in an overcoat,
standing on the door-steps, braving the storms of
winter and the sleet of driving clouds, hour after
hour,—calling out to the hackmen ever and anon,
like a watchman of old,—deprived of the opportunity,
even if he had the disposition, to go to
the corner, for a drink,—watching over the horses
and carriages of hundreds of dancing and immortal
creatures,—and, sir, I think you will say that it
is difficult for the mind to conceive of a higher and
worthier philanthropy.
I have addressed you this in justice to my client,
and if it be published I shall consider the honor of
my client satisfied; otherwise, sir, the law must
take its course.
Respectfully,
Attorney.
As I may have some testy correspondents in future,
who may use threats to get their letters
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published, I beg to say that I have associated with me
Tophanes as a literary assistant. I shall therefore
have at command the same means of getting out of
scrapes that is now so generally adopted by the city
journals;—that is to say, in case any article may
offend a pugnacious party, I shall have only to
state `that the responsible editor was absent,—that
he deeply deplores the insertion of the offensive
paragraph,—that he has known the offended party
from boyhood, &c.'
To be sure, Fritz, I have a dislike of imitating
the contemporary journals in any matter; and it
is only in view of getting out of scrapes that
might endanger my incognito, that I should ever
presume to take advantage of a popular chicane,
which, to tell the truth, is as unworthy the dignity
of a journal, as it is bemeaning to the character of
a man.
My publisher advises me that inquiries are numerous
as to the probable length of this series of
Studies of the Town, and he asks what answer
shall be given.
Tell them, Mr. Kernot, that when my whim
changes, or the town reforms, the paper will be
stopped. And this is as safe and credible an announcement
as any in the Literary World, or the
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archives of the Historical Society; and the flash
weeklies may whip it into their chit-chat syllabub,
if they can.
Timon.
-- --
MARCH 28. NEW-YORK. NO. 9.
“J'ai parlé beaucoup de moi dans eet ouvrage, sans recourir au pluriel.
On ne pevt me soupçonner de vanité. Je ne me nomme point: et en
parlaut de moi, on ne sait pas de qui je parle.”
[figure description] Page 187.[end figure description]
It is a capital amusement for me, my dear Fritz,
to listen to the world of critical remark, which our
unpretending correspondence calls forth. But I observe
that like most criticism of the day, it is not so
much based upon anything intrinsic, as upon the
supposed capabilities and the reputation of its accredited
author. I know no finer test, indeed, of
the critical acumen of our literary anatomists, than
the submission to their hands of some such amorphous
and anonymous matter as these very papers.
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Putting all their keenness to the work, they fancy
they see some man's idiosyncrasy `sticking out'
in every line, and the whole is docked off with
some popular cant of judgment, which has attached
by habit to the supposed writer's manner. It is
thus that I am running the gauntlet of a hundred
opinions, and while I have been honored with the
praise that attaches to a popular author, I find
at times my mirth vinegared with the stinging condemnation
that has swept some other unfortunate
book-maker to literary perdition.
One kind friend has assured me that he was
ready to produce irrefragable evidence, founded
on parallel passages, to prove that the Lorgnette
was written by the author of a late popular romance.
I argued the point at length with him,
suggesting that the resemblance might have been
accidental or intentional, but without avail. He
prided himself particularly on his acuteness in
those matters. Nothing, I find, is harder, than to
convince a critic against his will. When he finds
that he has done me so gratuitous honor, my only
hope is, that he will not, as is the habit with most
of our litterateurs, seek to qualify the errors that
his ignorance entails upon him, by the fertility
and profusion of his abuse.
An eminent Journalist has seen a relapse into a
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good style, after putting on a worse one for novelty.
Now, for my life, I can neither see any change,
nor am conscious of any affectation. It seems to
me now, as at the beginning, a plain matter of
setting down just such whimseys as pop into my
brain, in good, old-fashioned English, available
by every well-educated man, and which even the
boarding-school mistresses cannot willfully set
their faces against. The truth is, I suspect, that
the critics and authors are so full of the tricks
of literary metamorphose, both in opinion and
style, that they have not the charity to give
any new pen-man the credit of straight-forward
honesty.
A friend (Sheridan would have called him devilish
good-natured) was most earnest in his condemnation
of the papers, as the flippant observations
of a mere boy, who, he told me, was occasional
contributor to a literary paper. Now, Heaven
knows, that I have none but the most kindly feeling
toward precocious literary boys; but if my
paper is to be credited to any of them, I humbly
entreat that they would try so far to improve their
reputations, as to render the allegation no longer a
hideous reproach.
I have ascertained, too, by occasional remark,
which has been a sort of gauge to the current of
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literary criticism, that the town opinion is divided
by coteries, each one of which thinks itself the special
and heaven-appointed guardian of the national
literary interests; and, as is quite natural and
humane, each clique is tooth and nail against its
fellow. Whatever is accomplished under the
smiles of one, is reckoned the worst heresy by the
other; and the two limbs of our most excellent
Presbytery, or the `Standing Committee' and the
prayerful enemies of the Bishop, are not so sincerely
and cordially at variance, as the literary
coteries.
Now, as I am not acknowledged by any of them,
I find myself kicked about unceremoniously by all;
and am very much in the position of some unfortunately
humble Christian, who gets a fisticuff
from the Old School, because he refuses to send
babies to perdition, and a slap from the New, because
a partial believer in the old doctrine of Necessity;
while he is heartily anathematized by the
advance wing of the Mother Church, because he
doubts the regenerating influence of Croton water,
or has the impertinence to prefer a black gown to
a white one.
It amuses me not a little, to watch the pretentious
manner with which some middle-aged gentlemen
condemn me; they wear a pretty air of
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authority, made good by the seductive smiles of admiring
spinsters, and sustained by a large amount
of apparent causticity and acumen. Such gentlemen
are the inoffensive Nestors of large circles of
very eager, and very moderately witted ladies.
They cherish a certain cultivated frown, and condemn
by a twist of the lip, and are very sure never
to praise any who may come within hearing of their
praise, or whose proximity might throw their own
stature into the shade. I have been myself annihilated
time and again by these gentlemen; so that
really the weekly placard in my publisher's window,
has seemed to me an impertinence toward my
critics, that has made me almost tremble for my
temerity.
Yet they are worthy, kind fellows in a quiet way,
doing little harm in the world, highly amusing to
their indulgent friends, and critical enough for all
dinner purposes; if they were ever to submit
their observations to print, they would doubtless
differ widely from those of the Lorgnette. I
should be very sorry, at any rate, to think otherwise.
There is another class of men who boast too
a nil admirari air, who cultivate assiduously a
habit of condemnation, and who maintain a great
reputation with college boys, and under law-clerks,
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as `cutting fellows.' They are akin to that school
of politicians which is bent on equalizing, by pulling
back the foremost. For them, nothing is good
enough to be done; and nothing that is done, is
well done. They quarrel incessantly with society,
manners, and religion; they venture showers of
regrets that nothing is done to amend them; at
every new literary endeavor, they curl their lip;—
yet they do nothing. God forbid, Fritz, that I
should seem to urge them to any literary task, or
to become the innocent cause of deluging the town
with their efforts.
My only object is to give them this little mirror
of themselves. They maintain character by assault:
a sneer cannot be answered, therefore their
arguments are sneers. They live by spoils: they
are of a hybrid-hyena race, without much tooth,
but a great deal of claw and howl: they dig at
graves, where thoughts lie buried, and suck up with
their toothless gums the putridity — leaving the
bone behind.
Not a few ladies, `town-bred,' have put to me
the direct question of authorship: if such ladies
had been blessed with a little more of the politesse of
M. de Trobriand,[4] and I quote him below, they would
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have spared a harmless old gentleman the sin of
open denial, and been quit of a breach of propriety,
which they have committed through ignorance.
Where is their gentle blood? Let me warn them
to the search.
Qui nos commorit `melius non tangere!' clamo.
A little, truculent, round-eyed lady, who, as I
am informed, has been practicing a thousand arts
for a long period of years, to win notice, and to
thrust herself among those she worships and hates—
the people of the ton, has condemned my papers as
silly and foolish, and its author as a stupid fellow.
Softly, my dear Madam; indeed, you must not
wince because I have unmasked your arts: by so
doing, you will only individuate yourself among
the innocent toadyists of our `great:' and your
disapproval, so far from weakening the reputation
of my paper, will, I am sure, among those who
know you best, add a laurel to my humble chaplet.
Another ci-devant belle, of worshipful memory,
whose triumph-age has now passed, leaving to her
few of the rational pleasures of the fireside, has
told me that she thought the Lorgnette very
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insipid; and in an excess of indignation, had burned
the numbers. She regretted that she had not
provided herself with the `Squints;' I joined
cordially in her regret, and expressed myself certain,
that the desired work would be much more to
her taste. A belle passée, who has exhausted all
moderate means of mental excitation, and whose
vanities are sickening under the neglects that age
brings in its train, has no resource but in the
piquancy of ribaldry, or the grossness of open
license. As the passions of our merely worldly
women grow too faint for fleshly gratification, or
their charms too small to ensure it, they will inevitably
run toward the debauchery of books, and
gloat over the lusts of the pen.
These prefatory sketches are not, my dear Fritz,
foreign to my aim; they give you, well as anything
can, an idea of the currents, and opinions of our
town life. We will return now to our special portraitures.
“The town as usual, met her in full cry;
The town as usual, knew no reason why.”
—Churchill.
—“The husband or father, methinks, is like Ocnus in the fable, who
is perpetually winding a rope of hay, and an ass at the end perpetually
eating it.”
—Cowley.
The fashionable lady is born of reputable parents
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—not always of genteel, or even respectable parents—
but reputable ones. Her early years are
passed variously between baby-jumpers, and wet-nurses.
While at a tender age, she is taught the
advantages of dress by becoming lessons, and by
practice in very short petticoats, and very long
white stockings, as well as a hat, shaped like an
inverted slop-bowl, with proper quantity of ribbon
and flowers—to match. She toddles out in frills,
small sun-shade, and white gloves, with a shrewd
nurse, who has an eye `for folks what is folks;'
and she may frequently be seen, with her nose
curiously flattened against the window of her
mother's coach.
She is taught early the impropriety of going out
alone, or of democratic, and careless association
with the neighbors' children. Her toy-books are
well selected; and her library is specially rich in
those, which, as the advertisement says, have given
unfeigned delight to their numerous Royal Highnesses—
the children of Victoria. By these the
young fashionable lady is supposed to gain right
ideas about aristocracy of sentiment, and courtly
proprieties. She is, moreover, favored with the
moral teaching and talking of a femme de chambre,
nominally from Paris, but literally, and pronunciation-ly,
from the Auvergne.
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She is taught to look with proper languishment
upon little fashionable boys, and makes early acquaintance
with a cheap, second-story hair-dresser.
She is taken to Grace Church in her best hat and
gloves,—is pinched to kneel, and pinched again to
incline herself prettily in the confession. She is
told what a charming Christian place it is—is indoctrinated
as to the ends and aims of such a delightful
religious assembly-room, and is taught to
look, with becoming feelings of pity, upon such
poor outcast creatures as go to other churches.
She spends four years at school—the most expensive
accessible—where she learns that Europe
is quite populous and gay;—that America is yet in
its infancy;—that republic is the name of our government;—
that Franklin drew down philosophy
from heaven, with a small kite-string;—that tricotage
is of many sorts; and that literature consists
mainly of Tennyson's poems, Byron's tales,
Shakespeare, Professor Longfellow, Tupper's Philosophy,
and Mister Tuckerman.
She learns collaterally, that the French is the
court language, and so, very desirable, — that
the Latin is technically `dead,'—that the waltz
and polka are of the same family, and that
the chief end of man is to get houses, and to
behusband women. She is further taught, at a
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surprisingly early age, the nature and uses of fans,
of beaux, of chemisettes, of gloves, the comparative
effects of plaid and stripes, the disposition of cuffs,
and the chemical nature of perfumery and amandine.
She catches early at the distinction between
moustache and whiskers, and has a correct general
idea of sack-coats and imperials.
She is put, at a certain stage of her educational
career, under the charge of some literary gentleman
of quick wit and persuasive address, who expounds
to her fine passages of the poets, and important
epochs in history; all which is presented in an
attractive chit-chat shape, admirably adapted to
the ends in view.
She graduates in a pretty hat, with a deft use
of the fan, a passable familiarity with French table-talk,
an Italian song or two, a smart capacity
for purse-knitting, a general idea of the geographical
divisions of the globe, and some few axioms of
political economy:—such as, that money is necessary
to luxury—that lace has a tendency to become
soiled—that the best gloves are manufactured in
Paris—that campbene will clean them, and that
the law of divorce is a sort of moral make-shift.
Now comes on her age of practice,—practice of
French talk, piano practice, practice of coquetries,
waltzing practice, and Christian practice. In each
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of these she has practical professors, well taught,
of the highest prices, and fully equal to their business.
They will perfect a young lady of parts, in a
surprisingly short time.
Her `coming out,' if adroitly managed, will be
a very taking card: it should not be too early or
too late, and will depend much on the strength,
height, and bodily capacity of the subject—on the
views of the advising aunts, and on the comparative
attractions and prospects of elder sisters. Thus,
a female member of a family, who has reached the
age of twenty-five, without inspiring any very tender
emotions, would do well to keep a junior sister
in pantalets, as long as propriety or prudery will
allow. If fairly `engaged' before the age specified,
a year or two may be safely docked off from her
sister's probationary, and small-girl state. In the
case of several sisters whose looks are not killingly
captivating, the youngest will be apt to fare like
Cinderella in the ash-heap, and will run a sad
chance of nursery-tails, and short dresses, up to an
unfortunate maturity.
The `coming out' will indeed sometimes depend
on the mental development and age of the individual,
and more rarely upon the common sense of the
parties. Great preparations must be made, and
assiduous efforts to secure the presence of certain
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well-known leaders of the ton. There will be conferences
with Martel, and distinguished chaperon
spinsters—to say nothing of those enterprising gentlemen,
Messrs. Browne and Weller.
If the mamma has the misfortune to be merely
respectable, the fashionable young lady will gain
upon her by wide steps, and comes soon to regard
her with due sentiments of pity. She instructs her
mother as to what soirées she had better attend,
and gives her discretionary advice about remaining
in the corner. She puts forward all her powers of
fascination, to attach to herself fashionable young
men; and though at first, she will find herself
obliged to dance with very indifferent persons who
are `not much in society,' she must yet be discreet
in her refusals at this early stage of her career.
A little extra freedom in the waltz, if gracefully
caught, will not harm her prospects, but will rather
add a piquancy to her style, which if duly cultivated
may come to counterbalance the most uninteresting
face in the world. She should not be immeasurably
shocked at any double entendres she
may hear, but should credit them to a higher state
of fashionable culture than she has yet reached.
She might safely bear in mind, in this connection,
the advice Madame de Sevigné gives her daughter:
`Tachez non enfant, de vous ajuster aux mœurs et
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aux manieres des gens avec qui vous avez à vivre;
ne vous degoutez point de ce qui n'est que mediocre;
faites vous un plaisir de ce qui n'est pas ridicule.
'
As town fashion, like the town literature, is divided
into numerous conflicting cliques, she would
do well to select the most promising, and attach
herself firmly to it. This she can easily do by
lavishing very special praises upon all its members,
and still better, by hearty abuse of any rival clique.
It will not be reckoned indeed (as the opinion
runs), any great sacrifice of dignity, if she should
become the attachée of some enterprising lady of
fashion, whose suppers are good, whose balls are
splendid, whose religion is fair, and whose position
is undoubted.
The summer campaign, if rightly directed, will
be of essential service. She can easily ascertain,
by a little careful observation, the probable current
of the more fashionable `sets;' and she will throw
herself, inadvertently as it were, into the drift.
The United States at Saratoga, the Ocean House at
Newport, and the Pavilion of Sharon, are upon the
whole safe places, and much may be effected in the
incipient stages of fashionable growth, at either one.
Still she must be careful of her times; a visit too
early in the Summer might do her serious damage,
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and an arrival just previous to the height of the
season will work capitally well.
She should be cautious, however, of meeting any
shabby country friends at either place; and to this
end, should carry on an active correspondence for a
week or two in advance, with her country cousins—
engaging to meet them late in the season. A
thin old lady in calico, who says, `our folks,' or a
young man who dresses in a flimsey, black dresscoat
of a morning, who carries a baggy cotton umbrella,
and who blows his nose on the `stoop,' with
a `silk handkercher,' might do her serious damage.
She should also be quite sure that she will not
be overtopped,—that is, that she will not be `cut'
by any established habitué; rather than expose herself
to such deterioration, she would do well to
postpone her visit. If the Papa, in any matter-of-fact
way, sets his face against an expenditure he
cannot afford, and proves deaf to all entreaties for
the `Springs,' she must change her tactics; in that
case she would do well to speak deprecatingly of
the fashionable places, as being altogether `too
mixed,'—drop hints about barbers, and bar-tenders
in moustache,—`no knowing who one will fall in
with,'—`for her part she cannot bear it!' If this
is well executed, it will be very telling.
If a fancy ball should take place within her
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permission, she will select such dress as bears a fair
stamp of gentility, by having been already honored
with the wearing of some lady of distinction. She
will farther, by dint of a few coy and well-covered
hints to a gentleman friend, who knows the Express
writers, accidentally make their acquaintance;
and then, her Saracco and boudoir education has
been surely very poor, if she do not so beguile the
poor devils with her dance and smiles, as to secure
for herself a charming period about taper ancles,
and bust of Hebe, which will, of course, set her up
for the winter.
Her preparatives for the town season must be directed
with care and energy. Dress, she should
be slow to decide upon until the `leaders' have given
their orders; and by a proper intimacy (spiced with
free use of money) with Miss Lawson, she will
learn in advance what Mesdames So-and-so have
ordered, and will, by a singular coincidence, hit
upon the same. No wide difference from the popular
standard will be advisable, unless indeed, the
lady set up for an eccentric, or have recently returned
from abroad; and even in the latter case,
there will be needed a strong savor of previous respectability,
and good connections, to legitimatize
any outré trimmings of either hat or cloak. With
the vantage ground, however, of established
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position, an extravagance will be smiled upon, and the
`second rates' will be taught by conspicuous example,
that the popular idea, that Paris ladies
adapt their fashions of dress to the style of the
wearer, is a great mistake.
The Opera must not be forgotten; whatever may
be one's love of music, it would be well to cultivate
a slight knowledge of the operatic art, a familiarity
with the more popular pieces, and effective criticisms
upon the different musical composers. If the
fashionable lady has been abroad, all this will be
at once presumed, and her air of indifference will be
the most naïve in the world. She must, moreover,
secure a bevy of tonnish visitors at her box; nothing
short of it will sustain her rank. For instance,
it would be well to make sure d'avance of at least
one unmistakeable moustache, one journalist, one
foreigner, one `handsome' man, one `clever' man,
one young professional man of creditable position,
and a husband who is understood to be on uneasy
terms with his wife. A boy in wide white cravat
may be treated with provoking carelessness; and a
polka dancer of doubtful grace, should be met with
equal indifference. A country cousin, who happens
to be in town, should be tolled off with a free
ticket to a concert.
If sure of the place, and has seen a particular air
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applauded at the Queen's Theatre, she may clap
her hands, when all around are gossiping; unless
indeed, some lady of foreign birth should be near,
who would remark the exception. The fashionable
lady, if well instructed, will not be astonished at
any strange burst of music, or any eccentricities of
the singers. Indeed, she will never manifest surprise,
except when saluted cordially by some lady of
an under set. She will look patronizingly toward
young ladies of `family,' and regard only through
her opera-glass, the beauties who are not yet `in
society.'
After a winter or two of such experience, and
an open acquaintance with gentlemen of acknowledged
fashion, she can cast off the leading string
of her chaperons, and live her own life of fashion,
as proudly, and reasonably independent, as the
belly-full beggar in the play;—
Non ego nunc parasitus sum, sed regum rex regalior;
(Tantus ventri commeatus meo adest in portu cibus.)[5]
Meantime, she is not supposed to be insensible
(few ladies are) to the virtues and necessities of a
husband. Three seasons of single life display, if
the face wears well, are the minimum for a
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fashionalady; and as for the maximum, I fear I should
offend some very tender friends of mine, by even
hinting at its period.
When the matter, however, really becomes serious,
there must be a concentration of effort on the
part of our fashionable lady, to which her past life
has been altogether a stranger. It will not do at
all to retain the old flippancy when talking with
bald-headed bachelors of a certain age, who are
understood to be living on `their means.'
It will be well, moreover, to practice a little selfdenial
in the polka, and not wear so languishing
an air with the young bucks, when the marriageable
gentlemen are looking on. She may even venture,
on extraordinary occasions, to abandon the
polka altogether, and her church virtues (not always
Christian ones) should, in view of marriage,
be punctiliously attended to. Of course, she will
have a running knowledge of `expectancies,' and
will detect easily how far the candidate is of a compliant
and yielding disposition. A little eminence
of position by marriage with a lion, is not to be
overlooked by the fashionable lady; but if she have
sober judgment in the matter, she will see that it
is infinitely better to become the lion herself, by
overtopping the husband, and by possession of
abundant means.
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Having through papa negotiated the preliminary
terms of a `brilliant match,' she appears at careless
exhibitory intervals, upon the public walks of
the town, never forgetting herself so much as to
show a spark of enthusiasm, and never so natural
as to indulge in regrets.
The wedding is the occasion for picking up and
cementing together, by engraved reception cards,
the dispersed fashionable elements which belong to
the respective `sets' of both parties. The ceremony
must not be without its eclat. The bridal presents,
disposed with a proper eye to our growing Republican
magnificence, will make the talk of the boudoir
and salon; and the lace veil of the church,
and some manifest extravagances of dress, will give
chat material to gaping lookers-on, and the showy
finish to a `City Item.'
And yet, Fritz,—such is the morale of our town—
you shall find that this very item eulogist, who will
panegyrize the splendor of the ceremony, the magnificence
of the dresses, the style of the equipages,
to purchase a familiar nod, or possibly an invitation
to a `crush' of the winter, will, in his private
mood, vapor lustily against the town-worship of
wealth, and the bestiality of that appreciation
which measures everything by its capacity for display.
Such is the sincerity and purpose of our
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[figure description] Page 207.[end figure description]
censors of public taste; bowing the Baal knee to every
manifestation of wealth, where the obeisance may
stand them in small stead, and loosening their pentup
vanities only in the bar-rooms, and in the street,
against the wretched artificiality of our distinctions.
In private, they are cynics; and in print,
the veriest lick-spittles of us all!
God forbid, Fritz, that you in your luxurious
country quarters, should see in all this, a covert
sneer at wealth; in our country it must long be,
and properly is a great measurer of force; and by
force, I mean character, talent, activity, and mental
leverage. It is the forerunner, too, of those comforts
and that indulgence which give time and room
for cultivation; it is the grand furnace-warmer of
those nursery-beds from which sprout up the tropical
crop of refined luxuries. But in Heaven's name,
let us honor it, for what it is, and not for what it is
not; most of all, let us avoid that particular fallacy
which sees in wealth the essence, and not the
provocative of refinement.
It would be invidious, as well as fill too much
space, to say how many in our town are essentially
and brutally vulgar, in the possession of ample fortune:
how many are making brilliant show with
equipages and with coats-of arms—listening with
fashionable earnestness to the hand-organ-like
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lectures of Mr. Lord, and who are yet as ignorant of
Abelard as of modesty, and whose library books
are but painted backs. What would you say, too,
to foul crockery and cotton napkins, within a palace
of freestone, or to the vulgarity of that wealth, which
seeks only the outward and flagrant means of addressing
the money-worshiping eye, and which is
satisfied with the stare and livery of ignorant coachmen,
as the most grateful incense to its deity, and
with the sickly mention of pamphleteers and newspaper
item, as the sweetest token of its honor?
It would be odious, too, to mention how much of
this very pabulum that feeds display, has been
gained by most deceptive practices—not, indeed,
coming within the court calendar of villanies, but
that worthier and more honorable list of chicaneries,
which are too mean to have been anticipated
by law-givers, and which even our New Code men,
with all their quickness at littlenesses, did not believe
the race to have been capable.
To be sure, there is a hatred of wealth, due to the
smallest of our litterateurs, who boast of refinement
without possessing any trace of that fine soul-thread
of gentleness, running with every nerve, and which
constitutes the life-artery of thorough breeding.
This I will cordially join you in condemning, and
with God's help, will do what is in my power to
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dissipate that prurient affectation of superiority,
which the reading of current books, familiarity with
newspaper columns, and an unscholarly handling
of the pen induces—but which is without the saving
virtue of that high and true soul-refinement,
which must lie deep-seated in the man—which
must have had its office in every step of his education,
and in every shadow of his action; and which
will make his bearing and his words as unmistakeable
as the presence of genius.
But we are losing sight of our fashionable lady.
With marriage, her best life of show is only begun.
She can now run riot in a thousand frivolities
without periling her chance. Her ambition,
which before may have been bounded by some
vague traditions of virginal delicacy, is now wide
in its range. Yet withal she will be punctilious in
her church duties; she may even wear a matronly
air; and will be specially coy of manifesting any
vulgar attachment to her husband or household.
She is now mistress of her establishment, and it
will be the fault or failing of her husband's commerce,
if it do not shine with all those attractions
which decoy the vagrant peacocks of the hour.
A little whispered license will add zest to her
company, and bring her sociale nearer to the
Parisian standard. Perhaps a European tour, by
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post, a smuggled ticket to Torlonia's, and a cultivated
intimacy with such Paris society, as will welcome
money, and will pay in the loose coin of social
teaching, and the piquant equivoques of conversational
intrigue, will open her eyes wider to the
mysteries and delights of higher fashion.
Perhaps with some faint remnants of a better
feeling, tracing its beginnings to a comparatively
harmless childhood, she will sigh at the vanities
which surround her, and the deceptions which
mock the little sense of truth that remains;[6] but
there is no escape; the distinguished husband, the
leader of the ton, has got no ear for the foolish
confidences of a repining lady, or for the sharputtered
sentiments of disgust, which their common
life has ripened. She is bound by brazen bands to
a set—the first set—which has demands upon her,
unceasing and regular, for her quota of the stimuli
of fashionable action.
So she lives, staving off age long as she can,
with all the appliances of a quickened and nervously
unquiet ingenuity; but time will press her, and
will, before long, strand her withered and colorless
hulk upon the beach of age; her silken sails will flap
idly against the rotting spars, and will fill no
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longer under the breath of fashionable applause; all
the kedges of her golden cables will not drag her
back to the stream of popular favor.
At length she dies; she is buried by the gentlemanly
sexton, who has so ably superintended her
parties; she is honored, perhaps, with a patent
metallic sarcophagus, and goes—where?
Where should she go (if it is not impertinent to
ask), to culminate that life which has had its careful
beginnings here? Where shall she mature
those projects of town rank, those pretty polka devices,
those studies of street display, which have
been the aim of her mortal wishes? I wonder if
the pretty light of the Grace Church windows will
reach high enough to light her, or the carriages at
the door be stanch enough to carry her, of themselves,
all the way to heaven? The Devil, surely,
with all his malice, will not overlook the claims of
those who have been laboring through a long life
for a position in the `first society;' and he will,
without doubt, give invitations for the most recherch
é of his evening parties, to very many of our
`leaders of the ton.'
Seriously, Fritz,—what benevolence, what rational
action, what generous self-denying endeavor,
will help our fashionable lady toward that
species of future happiness which, however the
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Doctors may disagree, is very sure not to be made up
precisely, of Forti's singing, or Saratoga Springs?
Under which item of the `Sermon on the Mount'
shall we reckon her dawning chances? Upon
what text shall the Doctor preach her funeral
culogy? John Timon offers this from the Psalms;—
(and if the Doctors were as honest as they are politic,
they could not find a better)—`They have
dreamed out their dream, and awakening, have
found nothing in their hands!'
I leave it all, Fritz, the text, the woman, and
the `improvement,' to the preacher;—not the elegant
preacher of a fashionable assemblage, nor the
respectable preacher of a Presbyterian hierarchy,
nor the absolution of a political Bishop, nor the
moral novels of a seceding clergyman, but with the
best preacher of all — the individual conscience.
And if our fashionable lady has not smothered his
talk already, let her listen while she can.
This is uncommonly sober talk, my dear Fritz,
for an Opera-goer; but, remember, that we are
breathing now in the breast of Lent; and the
gray hairs, and the fleeting time warn me, that
such talk may not `fall to the ground,' even in
the careless pages of a gossiping essayist.
Timon.
eaf279v1.n4[4] Plautus, Capteivei, iv.2. The clever critic of the Literary World, who
has detected in my papers a classical inaccuracy, will correct me if I am
wrong, and will confer a special favor by multiplying his `instances' of
`bad citations.'
eaf279v1.n5[5] The kind letter of a lady correspondent, apropos to this topic, is
thankfully acknowledged. John Timon presents his best compliments,
and will be happy to hear from her farther.
eaf279v1.n6[6]“Il n'est que le voile de l'anonyme pour permettre ces allusions
delicates qui trouvent toujours, quelqu' innocentes qu'elles soient, des
consciences chatouilleuses toute prêtes à se gendarmer à la moindre
piqûre, et quand on en use avec autant de discrétion, c'est une curiosite
blamable que de s'efforcer d'en pénétrer le secret.”—Un œil a la
Lorgnette.
-- --
APRIL 4. NEW-YORK. NO. 10.
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“As in geometry, the oblique must be known, as well as the right;
and in arithmetic, the odd as well as the even; so in actions of life, who
seeth not the filthiness of evil, wanteth a great foil to perceive the beauty
of virtue.”
—Sir Philip Sidney.
“Mr. Timon:—I am astonished at you, my dear
sir; why do you speak so harshly of the town ladies,
and present them in so unfavorable lights?
I have been all along a most excellent friend to
your paper, and have, time and again, defended
you against most merciless assaults; but if you
do not speedily amend, and speak better of us, I
shall leave you to defend yourself.
“Yours indignantly,
“A Lady.”
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This little fragment of a letter touches me tenderly,
and shall have a full and courteous notice;
which, if it do not serve as vindication of my action,
will at least certify to my well-disposed correspondent,
the influence of her advices, and the
honesty of my disposition.
You, my dear Fritz, will I am sure be greatly
surprised to find me, who have been so long, and
untiringly the devoted friend, and admirer of the
gentler sex, suddenly become the object of their
frowns and animadversions. It is but poor remuneration,
surely, for a life spent in devotional
exercises toward the reigning half of Christendom,
to find myself subjected to the imputation of
libelous assault, and to the most heinous of all
charges — that of lack of gallantry. When you
recall, Fritz, my Quixotic career, scattered over
as it has been, with innumerable hazards, and such
hair-breadth escapes, as would have done honor to
the hero of La Mancha, or Santillane, you will
smile to think that any should be hardy enough to
impugn the action of my maturer age, and to
credit to unworthy motives, those whimsical observations
of mine, which are half made up of irony,
and half of covert praise. You will recognize the
apparent acerbity as only the occasional and delirious
excess of the fever of a life-long gallantry—
the accidental and interrupted lance-thrusts of an
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old knight who trembles in his stirrups, and whose
blow is rendered only the more uncertain by reason
of the warmth of his blood, and the ecstasy of
his admiration.
True regard does not gloss over errors in the
objects of its attachment, but rather by judicious
mention of such as appear, seeks to win them
away from their occasional sinnings, and make
them worthier of that respect which grows by
witness of reform, and which covets excellence.
I have spoken, it may be, somewhat harshly,
and in castigating humor (if such humor can be
predicated of a mild old gentleman's remark) of
many of the ways of the fashionable ladies of the
hour; and if I have been a little extravagant, it
was only in the hope of frighting away from the
worst vanities of the town life, by exhibiting them
through the magnifying lenses of my glass. And
even supposing all to be real and unexaggerated,—
about which point I foresee that there will be much
difference of opinion, — yet I should in no whit
blame myself for the representation, but rather be
emboldened by the conviction, that I should still
possess the sympathies of those who suffer, the
compassion of those who are blinded, and the cordial
dislike of those who are guilty. Nor are the
times or opinions so corrupt, but that these should
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prove very clever supports to any man who earnestly
seeks them. I know that I could sleep very
quietly upon them, and with a conscience `void
of offence.'
But have I a right, in remarking upon the untruth,
and frivolities of the social life in the city,
to bear so hardly, and so pertinently upon the ladies
of the town?
Most unquestionably: and in saying this, I do
them honor;—at least, such small honor as can be
reaped from the admission, that in energy, influence,
and activity, they are vastly before any of those
milliner gentry, calling themselves men, who affect
to set the rules, or to sway the fashions for our social
guidance. Who, pray, transfers the spectacle
from the stage, to the boxes of our Opera; who
sustains the drunken etiquette of the ball-room;
who favors, by toleration, study, and practice, the
most questionable of the foreign polkas; who
smiles upon the most needless of display, and
makes a parquette of pews; who gives a boy-tone
to the salon-talk; who fulminates the scandal, and
befriends the laced lacqueys? Who has translated
Mr. Browne—the new Enoch (not Una)—from the
funereal escutcheon of his undertaker's employ, to
the `heaven of invention' — invention of ball-room
tickets, and ball supplies; who has
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transmuted thriving school-boys into rapt polkists; who
is arranging our marriages for convenience, and our
houses for mere display? Are not our town ladies
ordering these things to their own taste; who else
is competent? Will they not agree with me in
saying, that sensible men are not weak enough,
and that men without sense are not strong enough?
We, in our country, Fritz, have long given a supremacy
to the Eve section of the human family,
which has grown into a national characteristic.
We have become the troubadours, and knights
errant of the nineteenth century chivalry. It is an
American distinction. The rush and fever of business
which `steeps to the ears' nine out of ten of our
men, has indeed made the obeisance (the gallantry
if you please) a necessity; nevertheless, it exists,
and is insisted on. Gynocracy, to use the nomenclature
of a literary man, is the disorder of the
town; and the old anthropocracy (to humor the
critic's classical conceit) is known only to the
business alleys of the city.
Women are clearly responsible, then, for whatever
abuses obtain in our social life. They fix
our hours of sleep, of eating, dancing, and worship.
They make the rules of our receptions;
they give the formulas for the interchange of hospitalities;
they establish the ages of beaux and
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belles, upon a basis somewhat similar to Sir Robert
Peel's `Sliding scale;' they give a character to
our music and our polkas; they rectify and sublimate
our devotions. They give the cue, even, to
education, and point out the limits of mental attainment.
In most of these, and specially the
last, they are easy masters, not pushing us into
much erudition, nor wearying us with the imposition
of much reading; nevertheless, they are in all
that relates to the social intercourse of life, our
lawgivers and taskmasters. The old Italian proverb,
`l'uomini sono azioni; le donne sono voci,' is
now reversed; women are deeds, and men, words.
If, then, we, their subordinates in these matters,
do sometimes suggest inquiry, or question action,
let them not take advantage of their superior position
to bear us down ignominiously, and silence us
by their frowns. Let them be generous as they
are strong; and suffer a quiet gentleman to throw
out such observations as his enfeebled sense may
suggest, without condemning him altogether, and
putting him to the pillory of their critiques.
I do not at all mean to imply the necessary illeffects,
or the unnaturalness of any such state of
lady-government. Social life, next to domestic
(about which it is unfashionable to talk in the
city), is the woman's proper province. The
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affections and passions which belong to her, are its
arbiters. Without her ballot, the most refined are
outcasts, and with it, the most slavish are admissible.
Even our respected friend Mr. Browne owes
his adroitness only to a right judgment of her
whimseys, and by really humoring, while he seems
to advise. The gracious sexton is not unworthy
the title of his old namesake, Tom. Browne.
The ladies rate the standing of every in-coming
family, and discuss and arrange the chances of its
position. Mercantile connections, and all the club
favors of gentlemen, are nothing to the familiar
reception of an accredited lady. It is only necessary
for an aspirant after social distinction, to be
`taken by the hand' of some notoriously well-known
lady, and presto, he finds himself transformed,
as quickly as the balls under a conjuror's cup,
from red to white, or from white to red. He may
woo, sigh, and grow faint of heart at the first,
without so much as the nod of a dowager's plume to
his earnest salutations; but let him once have the
public recognition of an umpire of the taste, and his
rusticity will grow into an eccentric refinement,
and he will be the mark for a multidude of favors
from the `middlings,' and of smiles from the welltaught.
Even John Timon has to avow his gratitude
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to those who have extended to him the helping
hand, and who, notwithstanding the sneers of the
Journals, have introduced his paper to the favor of
elegant society; (and this, surely, not because I
have tickled their vanity!) It takes off certainly,
not a little from the face of the compliment, to
know that the most gauche, and splay-footed of
cockneys have been set up in the same way, and
that the character of those who get the accolade of
fellowship is not of so much importance, as their
bearing upon the boudoir tattle. What is talked
of, must be known.
And this brings me, Fritz, to a most ungracious
branch of my subject; not only are our town
ladies the arbiters of all social form, (as indeed they
properly should be,) but they are also gifted by
nature with a certain happy love of display; nor
has nature in this regard been improvidently left
to neglect, but has shot up, under judicious culture,
into a yearning after distinctions, and a ripeness
of vanity, as much superior to that of men, as
to that of beasts. In this, too, they maintain their
established eminence; with the worse sort, it
breeds the mercenary loves, the winks at vulgarity
and ignorance; and with the better, it creates
tolerance for manifest extravagances, and an easy
conscience under the coming reign of surplice, and
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[figure description] Page 221.[end figure description]
confessional, and the prettiest ceremonials of imported
Romanism. This has set the heraldic
panels to our carriages; this has tricked our coachmen
in liveries; and this is making our children
reverent of courtly display.
Town ladies make very poor democrats. They
are not tending toward any Greeley philosophy of
equality, but are cutting us up into sets, which, if
their theories mature, will ripen into aristocratic
castes. I do not mean to hint, Fritz, that I am a
believer in any Proudhonic system of social democracy,
or that superior refinement will not always
make itself distinct by elevation, as surely and as
unconsciously as Saturn burns brighter than the
smallest of the asteroids. But this token of superiority
is not reckoned in the schedule of our modes;
we fetch over instead such poor pickings from the
wardrobe of foreign rank, as will serve the vanities
of wealth, and not offend too openly the hurlyburly
vanity of the street. Exclusion is a far better
security for eminence than cultivation. Let me
throw it out, them, to the ladies, who have the power
in their hands (though it may seem like a bit of
stolidity, and mock seriousness,)—if it is not better
after all, to cultivate the dignity of the Roman
matron, or the fidelity of the Spartan mother,
though they were not crowned with jewels, than to
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study, and ape those brilliancies, which made the
honor of a Maintenon, and the virtue of a De
l'Enclos?
The Journalists may vapor as they will, and the
clergy talk milk-and-water regrets, spreading their
sanctimonious admonitions softly on the heads of
respectable churches; yet if the women, in whose
hands the matter lies, do not waken their action,
while they gild their creeds, admonitions and
vapors will prove but waste wind. If the ladies of
ton will doat on boobies in their teens, they may
rest assured that the town will continue to furnish
an unfailing supply; if they will glory in gorgeousness
of equipage, the saddle men will thrive; if
their conversation lowers itself to the capacity of
school-boys, they will always be sure of devout
listeners; if belleship is measured by polking; and
refinement by opera-going, and blarney about Benedetti,
there will never be lack of belles, and never
a short cross of refinement. Honors are easily
worn which cost nothing in the getting; and that
cultivation will be easily sustained, whose only proof
and issue is a noisy claim of possession. Ridiculous
assumptions, and foolish foppery will never expire,
while they have the tender fondling of ladymothers.
The merchant might be content with his
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princely mansion, comfortably garnished with all the appliances
for bed, books, and board; but the lady
must astonish her opposite neighbors, by the magnificence
of her curtains, and must ransack Marley's
or Baudouine, for some bit of furniture more outré
than any in the possession of her very dear friend
Madame Somebody else. The husband might possibly
be contented with moderate festivity among his
friends; but our Juno of the salon snubs her much
attached Jove, and distresses him with a houseful
of curiously-gathered lions. The father might be
satisfied with a wholesome education for his daughter,
throwing out the newest of the polkas, and the
making of sonnets; but the Mamma overrules,
and encourages cultivation by the most modern of
the dances, perseverance by the latest of the hours,
and humility by the lowest of the low-necked
dresses. The `old gentleman' might keep his son
at study until he is firm upon his legs, and show
some signs of beard; but our elegant lady must
push him early at Saracco's, and gratify her motherly
ambition with his proficiency in the ball-room,
and by the professional praises of Mr. Browne.
The husband, poor fellow, might have some taste
for what used to be called domestication, with his
hopeful son, and his polking daughter, at his side;
but the concerts, operas, balls, and Broadway
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promenades have arranged it for him otherwise; if
he admires, he must admire where they most study
to be admired; and if he rebels, he will very likely
be compelled to bury his rebellion at the club, and
cheer himself with a cigar, and the yesterday's
papers. He will have no more hand in forming the
tastes or character of his daughter, than our hero
Martel, or the most assiduous of the polka
dancers.
And here, Fritz, I come upon another topic,
which it will be ungrateful to handle. Womanly
eminence in our day and town is turned away
from the hearth, and runs riot in the streets.
What lady can be found so silly as to aspire to the
distinction of being a good housekeeper, affectionate
mother, or tender wife? What one, so shortsighted
as not to sigh for the reputation of showing
the latest modes, of appreciating the most worthless
opera, or of driving the most stylish equipage?
Praise is no longer looked for at home, but in the
world. Merit is reckoned by the club-room babble
and the newspaper `item.' Contempt of less things
grows naturally upon the love of the greater and
noisier. Dash is worth more than virtue; town-talk
is better than the commendation of a friend.
To achieve position in a set, where the position
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shall have public recognition, is an aim dearer to
hundreds of our hopeful ladies, than any domestic
and worthy nobility. The old-fashioned notion
that a woman's throne might be built up highest
at home is exploded; publicity is the testimony to
her honor, and the end of her ambition. The
Lucretias are growing rare, while the Tarquins are
thickening. The Lares are transplanted from the
fireside, and are set up, like the painted images in
Papal Switzerland, at the shop windows, and
street corners. The only vestal fire to be heard of,
is in the blaze of the opera chandelier.
Our `leaders of ton' do not care so much to please
as to astonish, and had rather bewilder by the multiplication
of etiquette, than attract by its simplicity.
John Timon takes the liberty of telling
them, that in this they steer as wide of good
breeding as of kind intent. Mackenzie says, somewhere—
`A great man may perhaps be well-bred
in a manner which little people do not understand;
but trust me, he is a greater man who is well-bred
in a manner that everybody understands.'
What do we derive from all this, Fritz? First,
that the ladies of our town have the control of our
social life; second, that their native vanity is not
shocked at the consciousness of the power; and
third, that that vanity is unfortunately wedded to a
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publicity that braves modesty, begets scandal, and
beggars morals.
Nor shall I allow myself to be condemned for
this judgment, without bringing testimony for its
support; and such testimony can surely be found
in this letter which has come to hand within the
week past, and in which I waive the equivocal
compliment its author has paid me, for the truth
and sincerity of the subject matter.
Mr. Timon:
Dear Sir,—I do not know but a serious letter
will be out of place amid the ironical talk, and
only half-earnest tone of your paper; at any rate,
I have determined to tell you what I think and
feel—a thing I scarce ever do even to my husband.
For I have been married, you must know, nearly
three years; and for the last seven years we have
been trying (my Mamma and I) to `get up' in
New York society. And now (Papa got rich four
years ago last May) we have done it.
At first we had a small house in Thompson street,
and I took lessons from Signor Piccolino twice a
week on the guitar: I learned French at school.
Mamma was very kind to the girls of `good families'
who went to our school, and used to ask them
to come and take tea with me. Mamma always
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hired a new carriage at the stable near us, and
told me not to take one with a number on it.
As Papa got richer we moved into Bleecker
street, only two doors from Mrs. —, who was of
the `first set.' We patronized her butcher, and
used to ask the baker's boy what cakes and bread
she took in. We studied her style of dress, and
commenced walking Broadway. Papa changed
my teacher, and got one for a higher price, though
he was not so good as the other. We got a handsome
German to teach me music, and I used to
read Willis' poems, and Tupper's Philosophy: I
got some of Willis' poems by heart, and they are
sweet, so is Tupper.
We had little soirées now and then: at first there
were hardly any gentlemen but papa's clerks, and
cousin Dick, whom he would invite, though mamma
didn't wish to. I took private lessons in polking,
and used to get cousin Dick to come in mornings
and practice with me. Papa got occasionally
upon the committee for some public dinner, and
mamma kept the paper that contained the account
lying about handy.
We commenced soon making calls, and got on
very well, though some of them were never returned;
of course we cut them afterward. I liked reading
pretty well, but couldn't get any time.
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Mamma told me not to waste my study on what was
never talked of, and now since we take the Home
Journal she says there's no excuse for not knowing
just what to read.
We got some nice gentlemen to call on us after
we had been in Bleecker street awhile: mamma
flattered them, and papa gave them cigars when
they went away. They didn't do much as I could
learn, but were members of the club, and used to
dance—oh—exquisitely. We dressed finely, and
got to be friends with Miss Lawson: mamma talked
about a carriage, but papa thought it would be
better to get on `by degrees.'
Pretty soon we moved up town and set up a
carriage in earnest. I got new teachers, and paid
them more than ever. We went to Saratoga, and
my dress at the fancy ball was praised in all the
papers. I couldn't walk down Broadway between
three and four without getting twenty bows. Papa
was very rich, and mamma began to be invited all
about. We kept a man-servant, and had him
wear white gloves at dinner parties, and on reception
days. I purchased of Mr. Crowen some beautiful
books for the centre-table, and everybody said
we were getting to be fashionable. Mamma would
smile and say `oh no,' and, perhaps, say some hard
things about fashionable people, as if they were
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not worth knowing, but she never meant them;
and I, for my part, never said them. I forgot to
tell you that we took a box at the Opera, and
bought a half dozen lorgnettes. Our carriage was
a pretty one, and our coachman wore—oh—ever so
many capes.
I could get on very well in French, and had begun
to get a little Italian, so that I could read with
a dictionary a little of the Promessi Sposi. Still
there were some sets we couldn't get into. Mamma
thought it would be best to go to Europe; so
we went. We traveled post all over the Continent.
We made up a party at Rome with some titled
people to go and see the Vatican statuary at night;
and papa paid for all the torches. Little Clark
got us into Torlonia's great ball; and at Naples
we had splendid rooms at the Victoria, looking
out on the Villa Reale.
I learned Italian as fast as I could, and bought
lots of tortoise-shell, and lava ornaments, to give
away when I came back.
Well, we spent two years so, and then came
home. Papa gave grand dinner parties, and I believe
our return was mentioned in the Express,
and papa subscribed for the paper. We went to all
the balls, and looked so `knowing' at the Opera.
The gentlemen came to see me, and I had ever
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so many flirtations: until one day mamma said
I had better get married. You must not expect
me to tell you if any of those we chose, `played
off:' it is enough to say that at length one, a pretty
man, of good family, but without much money,
was married to me.
It was very gay at the first; and `the family'
were very kind; and mamma said I might consider
myself among the `ton.' I dare say I am, but it
don't seem such a great thing, after all.
And what is worse, everybody knows me, and all
about our history. Husband says he don't like
Tupper's Philosophy, so that I can't entertain him
with books. And he don't speak French very
easily, so we can't practice together; and when I
ask him to dance, he says `Pshaw! you are a simpleton!
' yet he always dances with the married
ladies at the balls. Mamma visits us occasionally
to look over the card-basket, and tell me what a
fine establishment I have got; and the clergyman
comes, and says I ought to be very happy; and I
suppose I ought; though somehow I am not.
It does seem to me that this sort of life is not,
after all, very satisfying. To be sure it's very silly,
but I cry sometimes. In Lent especially it was
very dull; husband at the club, and no parties.
Can't you tell me, Mr. Timon, now that I have
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been so honest with you, how I can amuse myself?
Pray do, and if you choose you may print my letter,
but don't let any one see the hand-writing.
Truly yours,
Amanda Miggs nee Diggs.
P.S.—My papa is getting up in the world: he is
just building a long block, which he means to call
Fitz-Diggs Block. Sweet name, isn't it?
I know not how to give advice on so serious a
matter as my correspondent has here broached,
without a more attentive consideration than I am
now able to bestow. She may rest assured, however,
that the subject shall not pass from my mind
without mature reflection, and such attention from
the Lorgnette as its importance demands.
“Cogitationes hominum sequntur plerunque inclinationes suas; sermones
autem, doctrinas et opiniones, quas imbiberunt; At Facta eorum
ferme antiquum obtinent.”
—Lord Bacon.
It takes a vast deal to drive a man's habit or his
nature out of him; the English philosopher says
as much in his quaint Latinity. From this it follows,
my dear Fritz, that all you see in New York
are not New Yorkers. Neither tailors, nor
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hair-dressers, nor the club-talk, can so transform a man
but that you shall see in him the lees of the ancient.
Indeed, between the Hotels, the Opera-house, and
the street, our town is not a bad point from which
to study the characteristics of the nation.
The people of the Town are not destitute of a
modicum of charity, and look with feelings of
proper Christian benevolence upon all strangers, of
whatever cut; while at the same time they wear
an air of what seems most natural and unconscious
superiority. But I observe that this is so carefully
concealed, that the greater part of strangers, especially
those from the neighbor cities, do not see it
at all; and are apt to flatter themselves into the
belief that they are passing current in the street
throng, as indigenous and unadulterated specimens.
Indeed, none but a Bostonian would ever resent
being taken for a New Yorker; and so carefully do
they of the sister city guard their identity by dress,
action, and speech, that none but the most careless
observer would ever affront them with the charge.
The Bostonian is strongly impressed with the
idea that his city is the particular nucleus of all
that there is great on this side of the Atlantic. He
looks upon other American towns as small planetary
bodies revolving about the centre of Boston
Common, and deriving most of their light, heat,
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and strength from Cambridge University, Fanueil
Hall, and Boston Harbor. He affects a wonderful
degree of kinship with the English; and keeps
up the connection by sharp shirt collars, short-waisted
coats, and yellow gaiters. He is apt to
put himself upon English stilts to look down upon
the rest of the American world, which he regards
complacently through an English eye-glass. He
does not so much pity the rest of the American
world, as he patronizes and encourages. His literary
tastes being formed in the focus of western
learning, are naturally correct and profound. He
squats himself upon the Boston formulas of judgment,
from which nothing can shake him, and puts
out his feelers of opinion, as you may have seen a
lazy, bottle-tailed bug try his whereabouts, without
once stirring, by means of his glutinous and manyjointed
antennæ.
He likes to try you in discussion, in the course
of which it will be next to impossible to tell him
anything that he did not previously know; and you
will prove a rare exception, if he does not
tell you many things that you never knew before—
unless, indeed, you have been in Boston.
His stock of praises is uncommonly small, and
principally reserved for home consumption; things
are done well, only in Boston; though they are
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sometimes creditably done in other parts of the
world.
His superiority in arts, letters, science, and religion,
of which he will endeavor strenuously to
convince one, is attributable partially to education,
but mainly to his being a Bostonian. Whatever
idea, or system of ideas, whether in polities, arts,
or literature, which had not its beginning, or has
not had its naturalization in Boston, is a fungous
growth upon the great body of American opinion,
which must of necessity wither and perish.
The Bostonian entertains the somewhat singular
notion that whatever he has never observed, is not
worth observing; and that the very few matters
of fact and fancy scattered about the country,
which are unbeknown to Bostonians, are not worth
their knowing. This gives him under all ordinary
circumstances a self-possession, and dignity of address
which is quite remarkable. He does not
conceive it possible that classical scholarship should
thrive at all, out of sight of the belfry of the old
South Church; and such chance citations from
classic authors, as may appear on pages printed in
other parts of the country, he considers filched in
some way out of Boston books. He regards all
those making any profession of learning, out of his
own limits, very much as an under pedagogue will
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eye a promising boy of the `first form' who occasionally
hears recitations.
He plumes himself specially on his precision and
exactness; you will never see a Bostonian with the
lower button of his waistcoat uncaught, and he is
uniformly punctual to his dinner hour. Vivacity
he condemns from principle—and the best of all
principle, which is—Boston principle. Even in
religion, he does not recognize the hot zeal of earnest
intention, nor does he run toward the lusts of
ceremonial. He is coy to acknowledge even the
personnel of a Divine Mediation; his dignity does
not like to admit a superior between himself and
the Highest. The comparative chilliness of the
Unitarian faith suits the evenness of his temper;
and when he casts loose from this unique doctrine,
which is to many a pure and holy faith, he runs
inevitably into the iciness of Pantheism.
In politics he is Bostonian. He speaks lightly of
the French, and of French Republicanism, and
indeed of most sorts of Republicanism which are
not reducible immediately or remotely to Boston
Republicanism. He has a very tender charity, too,
for the gross legal tyranny of his ancestral English;
and such of his sympathies as ramify beyond
his Pontine marshes, or the Roxbury plains,
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clasp stoutly round the mosses and blotches of
the royal oak of Britain.
In manners he is true to his faith; he walks
stiffly, dances stiffly, and bows stiffly. Like the
Englishman, he assimilates little with those among
whom he may chance to fall: he guards his integrity
by exception. His idea of elegance centres
in precision; and the ease that he possesses is
never more than familiarity. He is, like the Virginian,
usually of an `old family;' whoever heard
of any other sort of families in the Old Dominion,
or the `Cradle of Liberty'?
The Bostonian sneers at the riff-raff of New York
society, and will sometimes put a clever edge upon
his sneers. He is the favorite of such ladies as
love bookish talk, and who will not worry at an
awkward polka. He is quicker at a bargain than
a waltz, and he counts his town-talent a fair offset
to the money and the graces of our belles. A lui
le talent,—à nos femmes la fortune; tout cela peut
se marier. He reads the Boston Atlas, and Boston
books; he sighs for Boston Common; and lunches
on Boston crackers.
All this, it must be understood, my dear Fritz, is
predicated upon such stray specimens as may be
seen here and there wandering down our streets,
or adorning the corners, at our balls. That there
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is very much worthiness, that is here unnoted, about
the race which belongs to Boston, the world knows.
And if I were to make a particularity that should
have its point, I would say that the admirable
police, and municipal regulations of the sister city,
its well-ordered pavements and well-swept streets,
are worthy of all commendation, and much copy.
And the Bostonian may well boast, that while our
City Fathers are lazily drinking their tea in sight
of our city desolation, that snug Eastern Seaport is
gaining upon us by forced marches in all the commoner
and most comfortable types of an advanced
civilization.
As for the vagrant Bostonian, with whom I began,
and who brings his doctrinas, and his antiquum
with him, it is sincerely to be hoped that he will
in time fall away from the greatness of his unbelief;
and be willing to credit that eyes, heart, tongue,
and brain have been mercifully vouchsafed to
people in various parts of the world, by the same
kind Providence which has so overstocked Boston
Town.
Timon.
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-- --
APRIL 11. NEW-YORK. NO. 11.
“Dans le siècle où nous sommes
On ne donne rien pour rien.”
—Moliere.
[figure description] Page 239.[end figure description]
Gil Blas, before he was more than a day's journey
away from Oviedo, fell in with a very common
sort of personage, who wore a long rapier and
a ready tongue; and who was so lavish of his
praises as to win the best half of the traveler's
omelette and a capital trout to his supper. I am
inclined to think our town public not very unlike
the thriving hero of Le Sage; and that a stranger
cannot ordinarily hit upon a better method of winning
his suppers, or an omelette, than by rankly
dubbing our city an `Eighth wonder of the world.'
But the truth is, that between sarsaparillas, pills,
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lectures, and new books, the town is so cram full of
puffery and praises, that I have not thought it
worth my while to follow in the same track of
senseless encomium. It has become even more
vulgar than it was on the lips of the today of Penaflor:
and from having been a tribute paid by the
world on days of dividend, it has become a part of
the small coin of social interchange: as Swift says,
`the trouble of collecting it from the world was
too great, and the moderns have, therefore, bought
out the fee-simple.'
Thus, though I may have lost my suppers of
trout, and present favor, I trust that I may come
in by-and-by for a little moderate good-will, and
like Burchell, in the Vicar of Wakefield, who said
`fudge' at all the talk in the Primrose family, I
shall hope at the end to be credited a disinterested
purpose, and win a more thorough regard than any
of the young Squire Thornhills, who are so lavish
of their compliments, but who use them only to
seduce innocence, or to feed an overweening vanity.
The reader will remember, too, that the enthusiasm
of the old visitor at the Vicar's frequently led him
into harshness of expression, of which the sting was
only removed when it was found, on longer acquaintance,
that his love of honesty, and detestation
of all manner of chicane, was but the prompter
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to his severity. May I not hope likewise, notwithstanding
my neglect of praise, a little of that return
which in the end made glad the philanthropic
Burchell?
It is by no means from lack of subject that I
have foresworn praises; indeed, they abound.
Leaving private life, and the gayety of our salons,
where enough of modesty, of womanly refinement,
and delicacy are still exhibited, to counterbalance
the persiflage of ignorant intruders, and the boldness
of such as make unmaidenly display their object,—
I might turn to the chapter of the public
charities, and show you a whole town earnest to
assist, in their distresses, those poor families who
but a little while ago were so cruelly shattered by
the wreck in Hague street. I might point to a
score of monuments of both public and private
munificence; I might note the open cordiality with
which the stranger is received and welcomed: and
the statesman, or benefactor, fêted and applauded.
But of this there is no need: and even were it
needful, I am utterly supplanted: the monopoly of
such work has been long ago assigned over by common
consent to occasional orators, speakers at public
dinners, town journals, lady dancers, and Opera
managers.
It is, indeed, not a little odious, and sometimes
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painful, to find myself almost alone, if not worse
than alone, among those who represent the harsher
aspects of the town-life, its unmeaning parade, and
its senseless, social habitudes: but I console myself
with the reflection that not a few, and those worthy
of most devoted regard, will see underlying all
the irony and animadversion, enough of an honest
purpose and a true humanity, to redeem my character.
Were it not so, Fritz, I would long ago
have thrown down my pen in despair, and looked
as idly as the idlest upon the shifting currents of
our town-life.
“Nor would I, you should melt away yourself
In flashing bravery, lest while you affect
To make a blaze of gentry to the world,
A little puff of scorn extinguish it.
I'd ha you sober, and contain yourself,
Not that the sail be bigger than the boat.”
Every Man in his Humor. Act 1, Sc. 1.
I have already given you a glimpse of the Bostonian,
but he is not the only one among the
strangers in our town who is deserving of particular
mention. The Philadelphian is apt to fancy
himself every whit as good as the Bostonian, and
much better than the New Yorker. He prides
himself overmuch upon the cut of his clothes, and
until within a few years it was currently
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understood that the tailor craft in the Quaker city, was
vastly superior to anything this side of the French
capital; but I very much fear that they are losing
ground in this particular, and can now no more
compare their heroes of the needle with our Piercie
Shaftons, than their Fairmount with the Croton, or
Laurel Hill with Greenwood. Still, the Philadelphian
has his claims to superiority; and though he
does not boast now of a United States Bank, or
Nicholas Biddle, he makes up by talk about the
Girard College and Liberty Hall: he is eminently
fond of the fancied European aspect of his streets:
and whoever has talked with a stray Philadelphian
without hearing somewhat of the charms of Chestnut
street, must needs have been `hard of hearing.'
At dinner he is not a little disposed to speak modestly
of the treasures of his market—its poultry,
fruit, and eggs; nor does the Philadelphia lady
once admit that our haberdashers display anything
like so tasty a stock, as may be found at Levy's.
The Philadelphian enjoys, moreover, the consideration—
though he forbears to urge it, and though
he lives in the city of brotherly love—of belonging to
a population capable of more mob enthusiasm, than
any out of sight of the hills which overtop Lyons
upon the Rhone. Following upon this quality,
though how intimately associated with it I do not
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know, is his boast of the superior culture in Philadelphia
society: and one might safely imagine from
his conversation—using it in way of testimony,
and not as sample—that the erudition and polish
of a Philadelphia salon was something very hard
to be found, beyond the sound of the trickle of
Fairmount.
He would make it appear that money has little
chance in his city, against the predominating influence
of refinement and breeding; and he will point
out to you our grocer's daughter swimming through
the mazes of the waltz in the top circles of the town,
as an impropriety that would quite shock the sensibilities
of the tonnish ladies upon the Schuylkill.
I find, however, that like the phlegmatic Bostonian,
he is not insensible to the graces of such parvenus;
and that, whether amorous of the money, or the
figure, he is quite content to carry her off to his
city, hush up her origin, and engraft upon her
humble stock the elegancies of his elevated life.
Of course, she thus loses every vulgar taint, and
like the knotted dwarf stocks, on which the Burlington
gardeners set their Flemish scions, is
quite lost under the luxuriant foliage of the new
growth.
The Philadelphians are adepts in whatever relates
to hair-dye, gloves, or perfumery; and you
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will be able in four instances out of five to detect
the visitor from that city, either by the dressing of
his hair, the color of his gloves, or the scent of his
trail. You will find his locks most skillfully laid
apart, and rounded up over his ears as daintily as
on the wig-blocks in Chestnut street; while one
of our New York clubmen shall show in his backhair,
such a bristly and agonized parting, as
would shock the worst bred North country buck, in
the Assize-room of York.
The Philadelphian, too, cultivates a gentleness
and softness of manner, which proves quite taking
with our romantic school-girls; and singular as it
may seem, he will preserve this softness and delicacy
up to an advanced age: even the lawyers
are fond of genteel pleas, and the doctors, though
given marvelously to blood-letting, practice with
the softest handling, on the softest pulses in the
world.
The Washingtonian sometimes wanders to our
city, though never unmindful of his majestic
Potomac, and magnificent Capitol. He contrasts,
much to our loss, the unpretending Broadway with
the sweep[7] of his Pennsylvania Avenue. There is
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no great peculiarity to distinguish him, unless it
be a certain careless independence, as if he were,
by virtue of his position, a supervisor of the nation.
His dress and manner are of a mixed sort, being
picked up from such vagabond tailors and hair-dressers
as have taken refuge in the District—set
off with careless imitation of Sir Henry Bulwer's
hat or whiskers, and an assumption of the pretty
off-hand airs of an Ambassador's Clerk.
The ladies would be even less distinguishable,
were it not for an extraordinary air of boldness,
which thrives excellently well in our Metropolis.
For dress, they adopt with no little tact, such fashions
of the New York or Philadelphia beauties as
suit their style; and for self-possession, and readiness
of speech, I think they may be safely matched
against any lady that smiles. Indeed, I do not know
a better cure for maidenly diffidence—not that it
is a common failing in our town—than a two
months' residence at Washington.
From time to time, a Member who has decamped,
may be seen in our streets, wearing in an important
way the honors of his position; and looking
out upon our city as only one among his numerous
constituencies. He is, perhaps, a little surprised
that his appearance does not create a stir; more
especially as his arrival has been announced in
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the Express, and if a slave-holder—possibly in the
Herald. It is matter very likely of some astonishment
that the dinner invitations do not flow in
upon him by dozens; and that the street-passers
are so very ignorant as they appear to be, of
what manner of man is among them. Nor will
the Member cut a much more important figure in
the ball-room, than in the street. In the dance,
which he cannot in New York as in Washington
avoid, he will find his stiff ungainliness no match
for the little pliant fellows who are fresh from their
Saracco lessons; and his political talk and careless
toilette will be speedily thrust in a corner, or silenced
with the sop of ècarté. Let him win fame, or
fight a duel, and he shall dance `fit for a Duke;'
and he shall kiss in public or private, by proxy or
otherwise, half the ladies of the town.
Some limbs of the army or navy, will from time
to time excite quite a furor among our streetwalkers,
and will carry a flippant, assured manner
that puts them entirely out of the reach of ordinary
civilians. They are said, however, to be respectable,
harmless fellows in their way, and quite
comfortable companions at a supper, or a quiet
rubber of whist.
Here and there about the hotels, you will see
gentlemen of very important aspect, who cannot
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conceal their surprise, that everybody is not taking
note of their bigness; whereas very few, not even
the head porter or newspaper boys, are aware of
their importance. They are the judges, or great
men of country towns, excessively admired and
honored in their own parish, renting the most conspicuous
pew in their country church, and possibly
keeping the best gig and brown mare in the whole
township. Probably they have little properties,
which pass with their humble neighbors as `estates;'
but they do not figure largely in our town. It does
not occur to their embarrassed perceptions, that
amid a population of half a million, all bent on
their own affairs, the chances of the great man of a
small town, for making a stir by his entrée, are, to
say the least, very problematical. He should not
take it too much to heart, if the passers-by do not
dock their hats to him, or if his name is omitted
from the personal movements of the Express.
I really entertain serious pity for such misguided
gentlemen;—most of all at table, where
their loud tones, dignified carriage, and patronizing
looks thrown to their opposite neighbors, would
seem to merit a larger share of consideration than
they ever receive. But I am consoled with believing
that, if not admired, their own sense of dignity
does not at all flag; and they are sustained by a
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self-approval that is never at fault, and never weary
of working.
Stout youngsters, too, from western cities, perhaps
making first purchases on their own account,
are quite disposed to carry off a good many of the
street honors of the town; and have evidently prevailed
on themselves to believe, that their appearance
at the Opera may create quite a sensation: it
will be perhaps true of their coat, or carriage, but
for the rest they will be doomed in most instances
to severe disappointment. Some individual of
decided western habit and dress, who has imbibed
to the full that pseudo American independence,
which mocks at all forms, and even glories in pertness
and singularity, will stare about him complacently,
as if he were as capable of the highest
art, as of making a stump speech in central Ohio.
And he smokes his cigar, and wears his hat with
very much the air of that Scotch traveler in Switzerland,
of whom Goldsmith speaks:—he had wandered
into a church where all the people were
afflicted with goitres: they of course stared at his
slim neck prodigiously: `I perceive,' said he, rising
to retire, `that I am an odd fellow here, but I
assure you that I am considered a good-looking man
at home.'
I must not forget, Fritz, to give you a portrait or
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two of our stranger ladies. An American lady is
not without pride: and if it would not be counted
ungallant, I should say she had more of it, than
any woman in the world beside. Not a few, whom
we may call country fashionables, and who make
semi-annual pilgrimages to the shrine of Mr. Stewart,
are exceedingly anxious to be mistaken for
New Yorkers; and are curiously apprehensive lest
any action, or wry adjustment of dress should make
their provincial character perceptible. They are
mightily observant of dress and gait; and if they
find their country Pythoness has imposed upon
them a mantilla, or hat, the like of which is not to
be seen, they will be sure to carry back with them
a little stock of upbraiding.
Such lady is apt to run to the very verge of fashion,
in her anxiety to meet the demands of provincial
taste, which is somewhat spasmodic in its manifestations:
and she must be well assured that the
lawyer's, or apothecary's wife of her town, will not
outshine her in finery. She is anxious to conceal
any little innocent gaucherie that may pertain to
her, even from the clerks of the trading establishments;
and will assume an easy familiarity with
them, and counterfeit an acquaintance with goods,
and store-keeping generally, that is quite refreshing
to look upon. Nor is she ever ignorant of
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anything, which in her view a city lady ought to
know: and she cultivates an abandon, of a caste
rarely to be met with out of the public parlors of
the hotels.
Her conversation is not demure or quiet, but
lively: and she not unfrequently hums (if she
knows it) a snatch of a fashionable Opera. If a
friend calls, to ask when she came up to town, and
how all the `folks' are in Jersey, she blinks him
with very few words; she turns talk as speedily as
possible upon the Opera, and the town topics, and
chats in the glibest possible style of Mesdames
So-and-so, of the spring modes, and fashionable
books. She has no idea of being beaten off into
provincial topics in public places. At the Opera,
she wears the air of one who is not in the least taken
aback by whatever she may see, and as if she understood
the gist of the whole matter, as well as the
keenest of the critics.
Opposed to these in their action, are the timid,
modest ladies from the country, who have not
known enough of the city to be baited by its
assumptions; they dress innocently for breakfast,
and you will meet them at nine in the morning in
brilliant evening attire. Yet withal they are very
fearful that people are looking at them, and very
certain that their dress is a very pretty one. They
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are sometimes betrayed in their naïveté into looking
through a shop-window, and blush to find themselves
surrounded by such ungenteel people.
They labor under almost constant alarm about
their purses; and from the stories they have heard,
are disposed to reckon nearly every over-dressed
man either a pickpocket or cut-throat. In this they
are not far from right: still, in broad daylight, upon
Broadway, they may consider themselves comparatively
safe.
They are afraid of theatres; and if from New
England, the fear is accompanied with very zealous
and decided condemnation. The Museum does not
of course come under the same category, and may
be ventured on in virtue of an old moral tradition,
by all those who are too good for the Opera or
Niblo's. If the mother of a family, our good lady
will be very fearful, on her first visits, of the contamination
of her boys; and will look suspiciously
upon every sour, or moustached face, she sees
upon the street. She will mistake even the most
common acts of politeness, for the seductive arts
of unprincipled and designing men.
She is subject to unceasing, and most unnecessary
alarms at sight of any street-gathering, and is
convinced there must be a pickpocket or murderer
in the case; she is afraid of the cabmen, lest she be
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cheated or hurried off out of the reach of humanity,
and be lost to herself, her family, and the world.
Of the omnibus drivers, she has but little better
opinion, and an absolute certainty that a pickpocket
is in every stage. She wears her vail down
in passing the Hospital, that she may not become
infected with any town cholera: and is in a distressing
panic at sight of an engine, or at the cry
of fire.
Yet withal, Fritz, these very good women of the
country, who are the butts of city ridicule, will in
nine cases out of ten, rear sons who will take the
lead away, in business, in professional pursuits, or
in the arts, from the most luxurious of the town-bred.
They will prove the efficient and active
movers of our vast body politic, while the sons of
millionaires are contenting themselves with the
empty town distinctions of a dashing coat, or a tawdry
epaulette. Town worthies, who with their brilliant
social strides, entered upon while yet only
half through their grammars, are thinking to
outstrip, and throw into ludicrous insignificance,
the slowly accumulating manhood of provincial
youths, will find realized, to their mortification,
the old fable of the hare and the tortoise. Steady
effort, persevering industry, and right moral teaching,
is even now in obscure corners, laying the basis
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of characters, which twenty years hence, will control
the wealth, and the public interests of the
town.
Dress, equipages, perfumery, and the Opera will
always have native, city teachers; but the Pulpit,
the Exchange, Journalism, and the Bar, are drawing
in recruits from the rough sons of hard country
study, and of old-fashioned, rigid, academical education,
whose energy, spirit, and influence, will one
day make the hot-house progeny of the town quiver
in their shoes.
Show me an influential journalist, a rising man
at our bar, a preacher at once profound and practical,
a physician eminent in his profession, a merchant
who is fertile in enterprise, and successful by
honest industry, and I will show you one who
knew little or nothing of the fashionable life of the
town, until his mental and moral character was
already formed. On the other hand, show me a
lawyer rich in political intrigue, a doctor distinguished
by nostrums, a conversationalist fertile in
equivoques, a poetaster fatiguing the language
with his poverty, a merchant who is rich by successive
bankruptcies, or defalcations, and twenty
to one, he has been dandled in the endearing arms
of Fashion, and while yet in his teens, has converted
his feeble art of the grammar, to the crowning
arts of the boudoir.
eaf279v1.n7[7] Those who have seen Washington under a high wind in dry weather
will see a reason in the italics; those who have not, will please restore
the Roman character, and pass on.
-- 255 --
“— jamás te pongas á disputar de linages, á lo menos comparándolos
entre si, pues por fuerza en los que se comparan, uno ha de ser el mejor,
y del que abatieres serás aborrecido, y del que levantares en ninguna
manera premiado.”
—Don Quixote, Part II. Cap. XLIII.
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This is a tender subject, my dear Fritz; and it is
capital advice that the old Don gives his Squire:
little may be gained in broaching it, and much may
be lost. But my notices of the town-life would be
sadly incomplete, if I were to omit the consideration
of so important an element in the graduation
of our social scale.
The pride which induces a man to cherish the
memory of an honored, and respected ancestor, is
not an ignoble pride,—nor is it an unusual one;
and he must be a sot indeed who is insensible to
the regard, which by common acclaim should attach
to the name of his sire. But this ancestral
pride needs some caution in the using; it may
serve as the groundwork of very dangerous boastings,
and attract a degree of attention, or provoke
a contrast, that the boaster can very poorly bear.
A simpleton who should forever be declaiming upon
the talent of an ancestor, would only make his
weakness the more palpable, and draw down the
reproach of having harmed a great name, by association
with a pitiful soul. As he cannot be great
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himself, it were much better that he did not trace
his descent from greatness.
Yet strange as it may seem, Fritz, these are the
very ones who are forever talking of their pedigree,
and raking up from their family tombs, a distinction
which could never belong to their family character.
Nothing indeed is more natural than for
the man, who has not within himself the means of
challenging popular esteem, to take it boldly from
the ashes of his fathers: necessity, in a measure,
justifies the action, and the theft of the bread of
ancestral distinction, is pardonable in those descendants,
who are starving under the hunger of contempt.
You may think, Fritz, that such observations
have no aptness in my studies of this Republican
town; but if so, you would be strangely mistaken.
Our Republicanism has not yet so far individualized
the man or the family, as to make either reliant
solely on their own action, name, or character,
for distinction.
We have not only the old and meritorious pride
in family names, honorably associated with our Colonial
History, but the importation of other foreign
luxuries has brought in its train, an immense
amount of the worship of family splendor and imaginary
genealogies; which as they make the basis
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of much of the feudal aristocracy, are serving as
the apologies and adornments of our own. They
are just the apologies indeed, which are needed to
make it good, and render it effective among those
whom it is intended to impress.
A man's own distinction and successes are losing
their force amid the classified and billeted brilliants
of our upper circles. The homely honor of having
wrought out a name for one's self, or having accumulated,
by successful and public spirited enterprise,
a great estate, is beginning to lose ground
before that spirit of conventionality and foreign imitativeness,
which finds its best types in liveries,
spurious heraldry, or in the habit of display and of
exclusion.
Our rising men, of such callings as have heretofore
been reckoned outcast, are beginning to understand
this matter, and are learning that bravado,
and well-cut coats-of-arms are better worth, than
any study of refinement, or pretence for cultivation.
Families of our town will presently be known from
their crests, and all our brokers make their servingmen
conspicuous by a vulture stamped upon their
buttons. The Digg's livery, and the Mugg's coach
will be the best descriptive types of the respective
families, and will be as familiarly known as the
coat-collar of Northumberland, or the hat-band of
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the Marquis of Westminster. All this serves as
the mark of a distinction, which might otherwise
escape notice, and secures to the offspring, a comfortable
ancestral basis, without any fees at the
herald's office.
But we are not yet so far gone in European notions,
nor so blinded by these miserable excuses
and cravings for title, but that their flimsiness is
sometimes seen through distinctly enough, to expose
the wretched poverty of what is behind. Imagine
an honest and respectable grocer, tailor, shop-keeper,
or whomever you please, not showing any
pride in that industry which has wrought out for
him an independence, nor making his tastes and
expenditures keep cheerful and honored company,
but like a scurvy coward that he is, turning his
back on the trade that has enriched him, and trying
to hide its remembrance by new-vamped crests,
and the blazonry of a coach panel! What sort of
manly republican independence is this? Let him
trick himself as he will, the peacocks, whose plumes
he has stolen, will have their peck at him, and
the sable jackdaws, to whose tribe he belongs, will
utterly despise him!
Observe, Fritz, that I am throwing out no sneers
upon any particular calling or trade. It would ill
become me, a pamphleteer, without name (and as
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my honored friend, Mrs. K—, alledges, `not in
society'[8]), to be so bold. Why should we, indeed,
in any manner decry, or make light of those envied
possibilities which our blessed Republic guaranties,
and which will make the coal-boy of to-day, the
judge, or the millionaire of to-morrow? There is no
trade, and no profession, which is not respectable
for an American, except the trade of pretence, and
the trade of dishonesty.
And it is this very pretence, my dear Fritz, that
I want most to rebuke; it is the covering up of the
individual, and his personal acts or acquisitions, with
the patched and parti-colored coat of an adopted
European artificiality; it is the shame for what we
are, and the pretension to what we are not. That
American must be weak indeed, who wishes to
prop up his republican manhood on the rotten stilts
of an extinct feudalism! I will not envy him if
he stands, nor pity him if he falls.
My up-stairs neighbor, the gray-haired lodger,
with whom I have had frequent conversations on
this, as well as kindred topics, considers himself,
by virtue of a name bearing the Dutch prefix of
Van, one of the `old families;' and though he is as
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poor as a Christian need be, he yet looks with ineffable
disdain upon what he calls the pretenders of
the day. His name, and a snuff-box, are all that
have come down to him from a glorious ancestry.
He cherishes both with equal pride and tenderness,
and never taps at his box without thanking Heaven
that he was born a Van.
He of course reckons the broad-skirted Dutchmen
as the elder members of our aristocracy, and
is disposed to look with strong sentiments of distrust
upon any which does not smack of the old
Dutch flavor. He affects great indifference at
sight of the equipages and houses of our up-town
great, and talks complacently of the time when our
neighborhood was the centre of wealth and respectability.
Indeed, he humors his fancy with the idea
that a large proportion of it still remains, though I
must confess that we have but a scurvy set of
neighbors. I am strongly inclined to think that
the old gentleman, with all his pride, would be
tempted to give up his broad skirts, and the Van
to his name, if he could only secure a good slice
each day from the comfortable dinners that our
parvenus are consuming; for the love of the luxury
that wealth brings, is, I find, a most prevalent
affection, as well of old families, as of new ones;
and nothing will so reconcile most men to lack of
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ancestral badges, and a sounding name, as a plentiful
provision of all the comforts of life, and a free
license to indulge.
Among the pleasant little artifices which are
adopted by those emulous of ancestral honors, is
that of changing the name, by transposition of a
letter or two, into something having strong affinities
with the great names of history: this practice,
if followed up with philologic attention, will result
before many generations, in an entire transformation,
and in the open possession of an ancestral root and
tree, that will most amply repay the pains-taking.
A change of pronunciation, if insisted on, will not
unfrequently do wonders, in giving an air to a man's
title; and if sufficiently romantic, or illustrious, it
may serve to christen a country-seat, or a town residence—
much to the undisguised admiration of the
suburban classes.
Wealth of itself, is not understood to create any
immediate ancestral claims; time enough must
elapse for the life and death of an hypothecated
ancestry; which time has been shortened down in
some instances to the very brief period of three or
four winters. A short period, it is true, as the
world goes generally; but we `manage those
things better in our town.'
I do not mean to say, Fritz, that wealth supposes
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no ancestry at all, which to be sure, would leave
a frightful hiatus for modesty to tumble in; but it
is such as is not suited to the boasts of the heir;
and might possibly be as irksome to his pride as
that hinted at in the French couplet:
“Comment s'appelait ton père?
C'est le secret de ma mêre.”
What particular action, or claims upon distinction,
are of the best complexion to make up a good,
compact, ancestral reputation, I can hardly tell.
Services rendered the state would of course weigh
considerably; but if I might be permitted to judge
from existing examples, I should say that the accomplishment
of nothing, either for the state or the
town, was nearly as good. Be as it may, however,
distinguished families are multiplying like witchcraft.
New families are dying out, and old ones
are sprouting all over the town. They will presently
become as plentiful as they are in Virginia.
You have heard, Fritz, Southey's bad story of
the New Gate Calendar—how it was bought up
by American Colonists, looking up their genealogies.
If the Messrs. Harper would undertake a reprint,
and the Tribune and Courier give their favorable
notices, we have no doubt but it would
prove a profitable venture.
I have often wondered, my dear Fritz, what a
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[figure description] Page 263.[end figure description]
curious figure the ancestors of our ladies and gentlemen
of ton would cut, if suffered to come up to
the light, and mingle for a little time in the festivities
of the town. Not that they would be cordially
welcomed by all their distinguished issue, for we
fancy that many a poor knight of the needle, or
awl, would be shuffled off very unceremoniously
and very unfilially, into the basement rooms.
In one quarter we should see a broad-skirted old
Dutchman, in cocked hat, and with cane mounted
with buck-horn, wheezing and puffing down some
dim business alley in search of his great-grandson,
or perhaps coming upon him in his dancing practice,
and uttering an indignant `Dunder and
Blixem,' at the unscrupulous familiarity of the
Saracco women. In another direction we might
find some great expounder of colonial jurisprudence,
searching out his descendants among the newly rich,
emulous of rivaling the show of their neighbors,
and not at all, of sustaining the intellectual dignity
of the name. A humble, dapper little fellow, of
a century back, familiar in his day with shears or
yard-stick, and who had left a company of dapper
girls comfortably at the counter, would burst upon
his great-grandchildren amid all the brilliancy of
the Opera, and watch with wondering eyes at their
well-modulated applause of such music as he surely
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never heard before death,—and it would be uncharitable
to suppose he had heard such since.
Some rusty old coachman might resume his place
upon the box of a carriage, in which the pink of
our fashion, his posterity, are rustling in silks; and
many a grandpapa would, if invited filially to the
home of his descendants, whet an appetite with
French ragouts, that in the old reign of the flesh
had sated itself on cheese and Dutch herring.
But quite the worst of it all would be, that the poor
ancestry would be wished heartily back to the hottest
of places, rather than have their insignificance, and
real presence, mar the lustre of our `old families.'
There would be such bitter tears shed over their
reappearance, as never watered their funeral or
tombs; and the unoffending little cobblers would
be hurried off to their leather and lapstone, as peremptorily
as when old Peter Stuyvesant caught
them at their political meddling.
Yet this revival, Fritz, of the true state and pomp
of our ancestry would be a most republican display:—
great because of its diversity, and of the
proof it would offer of that social elasticity, which
belongs to our scheme, and which will ensure to
industry and integrity, whatever may be its station,
wealth and honor. Alas, for human nature, that
it should blush for its necessities, and that such
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[figure description] Page 265.[end figure description]
effort should be made to hide an origin, which is
perhaps the only basis of its honor!
And in this connection, my dear Fritz, I cannot
forbear turning my glass toward that painful
tragedy whose blood and mystery have not yet
passed from the minds of men. I allude to a recent
murder, which may be traced back, step by
step, to the impulses of a social pride; a desire to
blend, and be even with that assumed and admitted
aristocracy, which, though it might have been
based on refinement, needed, in the judgment of
the unfortunate culprit, the trappings of wealth for
its sustenance.
If social education and popular habit had not
grafted upon him the inevitable necessity of doing
something more than regular performance of duty,
and basing his position upon something more showy
than gentlemanly address, the motive would have
been wanting to those first oversteppings of the
means of living, to that obliquity which induced
unfairness of commercial dealing, and to the final
issue of the dreadful tragedy. Dr. Webster (if
guilty) is as much the victim of our social heresies,
as he is of a brutal passion. If men had been respected
more entirely for what they are, and not for
what their habirations or their dinners are, Dr.
Webster might still have been the respectable
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lecturer, the successful subduer of his own passions,
and the esteemed father. But the obeisance paid
to wealth and to genteel living, was strong enough
and general enough to bear him down in its tide;
and in the fear of being submerged, he must needs
thrust another under—to the grave.
It is idle to say that he would have been as much
respected, if his living had been modest and commensurate
with his means; probably he might have
been; but the popularity and commonness of an
opposing opinion, making its manifestations most
strong and patent, seduced him from such belief—
to his fall.
Not one bankruptcy in five but owes its origin
to the same social causes; and the `getting into
society' with curtains and coaches, is a fallacy
that is `getting' a great many very fast out of the
bounds of honesty and independence.
Nor will I forbear, Fritz, to enter my testimony
with pride, to the dignity of that Court which has
not been shaken by prominence of social position,
and which has weighed talent and scientific attainment
as nothing, when opposed to those great interests
of humanity and common justice which our
Republican rule professes to protect.
Timon.
eaf279v1.n8[8] In this matter, I am content to throw myself with pride upon my
own incognito, and to stake the battered head of the Lorgnette at the
top of my sheet, against all the escutcheons, tinctures, and charges of
an hermaphrodite heraldry.
-- --
APRIL 24. NEW-YORK. NO. 12.
Quid scribam, vobis, Lectores, aut quomodo scribam, aut quid omninò
non scribam; Dii me Deæque (homines feminæque) pejus perdant quàm
perire quotidie sentio.
Tacit. (ad Timonis fidem emendatus.)
[figure description] Page 267.[end figure description]
The sick Tiberius was never at more loss to know
in what humor he should address the Roman Senate,
than I to discover what topic will best suit my
town-readers. Not a few have suggested that I
give further sketches of the Opera, with dainty
episodes upon the extravagances of dress, and inuendoes
which would touch here and there along
the range of boxes. I have been advised that such
and such persons, by virtue of some moral obliquity,
were fair game, and that the scandal of the
exhibition, if ornamented with the quiet simplicity
-- 268 --
[figure description] Page 268.[end figure description]
of my narrative, would add hugely to the name and
repute of my work. One is represented as having
forgotten the duties of a wife, and even the moral
dignity of a mother. Another, it is said, has by
common assent, perverted all her womanly delicacy;
and by a series of eccentricities, which as John
Tyler would say, are `conterminous' with immorality,
has rendered herself the fair, and deserving
target of all a penman's arrows. But if kind
advisers would allow me, Vice is not always to be
determined by its most palpable exhibition: and
John Timon, in the course of his life, has seen
enough to show that Virtue may sometimes lie
hidden under the idiosyncrasies of native wanton,
and that all the sanctiomonious airs of a vestryman,
or a deacon, may cover the lusts that spring
from the devil.
Another most goodly patron has suggested to
my publisher, that the church quarrels, which, unfortunately,
are not rare, would offer capital topic
for what they were pleased to call, the flowing
periods of Timon. And very many who have little
to boast of, except a hankering after scandal, have
urged upon me the adoption of something more of
personality and directness of issue; and have
covered up their cravings under the softly charge,
that my papers were `too gentlemanly.'
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Is it not sadning, my dear Fritz, to believe that
the town-taste is so set on edge with the vinegar of
such as push their writings to the furthest edge of
delicacy, that no modest and subdued discourse
upon the social habits of the day, can be received
with any relish whatever? Where, in the name
of Heaven, are we running, when modesty must
hide its face, and when the gross scandal of a
divorce trial, or the brutal developments of our city
police, make up the entertainment of those who
read, and of those who guide our taste? Answer
me, Fritz,—is popularity worth enough that a man
should fling behind him social proprieties, and fraternize
with the lewd panders to our growing appetite
for scandal and immodesty?
Must I, to make my letters `taking,' abandon
the better impulses which belong to me as a plain
country gentleman,—duck to the habit of the town,
and offend against those proprieties, by which alone
I know how to set valuation on society?
I know, Fritz, that I lose much by forbearance;
when the personalities of scurrilous paragraphists
are read with unction, how can a simple talker
about popular extravagances be listened to with
any degree of attention? They who have surfeited
their appetites on leeks and onions, will surely turn
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up their noses at the mustard and oil of even a
well-dressed salad.
Indeed, were I to attempt to give to my papers
what my good critics would call the spice of personal
invective, it would require far more art than
I am possessed of, to steer adroitly between the host
of conflicting social jealousies, and to be sure of
winning kind consideration of one party, by hearty
abuse of another. Madame Dolittle might be intensely
gratified if I were to give the public a
tricksy portraiture of her rival, but most kind
friend, the Dowager Nettleton; and the interesting
Miss Squibbs would very likely laugh incontinently
at any sketch of what she reckons the improprieties,
or the genteel pretensions of her pretty neighbors.
Those whose moderate intelligence serves as a sort
of bar to any literary reunions, would thank me
kindly for painting some rubicund young lady declaiming
before a select circle, her own sonnets, or
a page of Mr. Tupper; and Miss Homely would be
delighted at my exhibition of some scandalous expose
of her pretty friend, in a private tableau.
People who make up their virtue out of a plain
carriage, and their religion out of two sermons a
week, would bid me, perhaps, God-speed, in reproducing
the heraldry of their coach-driving friends,
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and in puncturing the windy morality which is
blown up by pretty-mouthed preachers, and guarded
by imposing ceremonial.
The small crities who give proof of head and
tongue by overmuch snarling, and who draw public
attention by their yelps at the heels of the great,
would very likely give me an encouraging snuffle,
if I were to join them in their canine pursuits; and
all the women of pliable virtue would honor me
with abundance of smiles, if I were to attempt detraction
of the pure and high-minded.
But while thinking to gain ground, I might be
inadvertently a great loser; and scratch deep,
where I only thought to curry favor. Prudence,
as well as propriety, forbids then, my dear Fritz,
that I should enter upon any invidious, personal
strictures; those who love such topic are referred
to the sources which are kindred with their tastes;
they will find none of it here; my mask shall not
be abused for any stealthy strokes; and whoever
worries his vanity with the thought of personal
injury, shall, upon due authentication of his griefs,
find a man to answer him.
But in virtue of those kind friends who are so
tenderly solicitous that a little more of the caustic
should be applied, and who are plainly of opinion
that personal sketches would derogate in no degree
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from the character for propriety, which my paper
sustains, I have determined to note down their
names; and whenever, in the aggregate, they shall
present such a pretty range of characteristics as to
tempt my pen, they shall be honored with particular
attention: and thus, modestly, and without intention,
they will become the heroes and heroines of
their own suggestion. A half dozen such are
already on my list, but thus far I am compelled to
say, that their vanities are so small, and their
vices of so common-place a character, that they
will not avail to point a period, even with the most
dexterous of handling. But let them not live
without hope; common-places are sometimes remarkable
by aggregation, and even niasérie has its
heroes.
`He who would shun criticism, must not be a scribbler; and he who
would court it, must have great abilities, or great folly.
—Monro.
`Good authors damned have their revenge in this,
—To see what wretches gain the praise they miss.
—Young.
I have said, Fritz, that modesty would belong
to my remarks on literary men, or matters; but
what reviewer, from Mr. Brownson to Dr. Griswold,
was ever modest? It is a quality that does
-- 273 --
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not belong to the craft; and the moment that my pen
touches paper, to give you some of the characteristics
of our literary men, all my efforts to sustain
a proper degree of humility vanish most strangely.
But if all sense of modesty is lost, I shall be at
least kept in countenance by the herd of town
critics, not one of whom but thinks himself as
capable of analyzing the most abstruse theory
in metaphysics, as of dividing into stops the full
chorus of the Opera.
Should I so far forget myself, as to speak of the
works of town-writers with an air of levity, and a
tone of judgment which would seem to bespeak a
higher power, and a finer eye in the critic, than in
the author, let the audacity be credited where it
properly belongs—to a slight infection with the
critical rabies, and not to the impertinence of a
humble country gentleman. It is possible that a
little lurking desire to gratify my vanity impels
me; for there is scarcely a better way that a vain
man can take, to raise himself to a fair literary
level, than by so lowering the platform on which
stand the literary tribe, as to make his humble
position less apparent. Nor is this pulling down
of the platform, effected as I find, so much by open
abuse, as by a wonderfully nice critical analysis,
a few kind words, a happy familiarity of
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expression, and such other means as may go to show
the critic fully capable of judging, and even rich
enough to fling out a few tid-bits of praise.
Indeed, had I ambition for authorship, further
than editing these occasional papers, I do not know
how I could so well make a respectable name as by
respectable abuse and praise of the living town-authors;
this would gain one credit with the publishing
craft, and would ensure abundance of applications
to edit the works of dead writers, and to
write prefaces to the works of the new-born. Moreover,
I should be very sure of purchase at the hands
of the authors themselves, (and this would make
no inconsiderable sale,) who are as crazily anxious
to know what is said of them, as a woman of doubtful
position. I could count safely, too, on the praises
of all the authors I had seemed to commend, and
on the hearty abuse of the rest. Better aids than
these to a `town run' could hardly be desired.
Our book-reading world has, I find, its periodic
fevers of literary fancy, a sort of author choleramorbus,
which leaves the public mind in a very
debilitated condition; nor does it operate much
more favorably upon the writer; since it reduces
him in most instances to a state of sad depletion,
if not of decided collapse.
As illustrative of this, you will remember, I
-- 275 --
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think, Fritz, a furor which some years ago attended
the publication of a book called `The Glory and
the Shame of England,' but which so completely
exhausted itself by excess of effusion, that a biography
of Sam. Houston, and the rich elaboration of
a most extraordinary `Ivory Cross,' could not
wholly revive it. The `Gallery of distinguished
Americans,' with fairly done lithographs, in lieu of
engravings, will make a better hit, it is to be hoped,
than the discharge upon the Texan President;—
as much more effective, in short, as a revolver than
a single barrel. Our distinguished men will surely
not be so ungrateful as to withhold some reasonable
`reward of merit.'
Again, not long since, about the period of the
publication of `Napoleon and his Marshals,' the
public was sadly affected with a kind of battle and
thunder delirium, which did not abate until after
very much blood-letting, and a quieting dose of the
Sacred and profane (Adirondack) Mountains. Those
who were most sadly under the influence of the
delirium, have endeavored to give the best possible
evidence of recovery, by heaping inordinate, and
most undeserved abuse upon the unfortunate author,
who so little time ago, bewitched them with
the force and vigor of his language. The name of
this author has been occasionally associated by
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some over-shrewd ones with the Lorgnette. It is
surely not a little droll that suspicion of any martial
propensities should attach to the rustic plainness
of Timon; let the wiseacres pick me out, if they
can, a musket, a general, or a Sinai, in the whole
range of my papers.
The Tupper fever has become almost chronic,
but it is not now in so active a state of eruption
as a year or two since; its outbreak was attributed
to an inoculation by Mr. Willis, through the medium
of a little vaccine matter supplied by the
Home Journal. It is now understood to be confined
chiefly to school-girls, and literary young women.
It was a remarkable symptom of this disorder that
those afflicted with it were accustomed, in their
moments of delirium, to confound Martin Farquhar
Tupper with Solomon, an ancient king of the Jews;
the proverbial philosophy was bound up by church
bookbinders, and even now may be seen on the
tables of some afflicted sufferers, lying between the
Prayer Book, and the Psalms of David.
There was at one time serious danger of a Festus
outbreak; but either from the length of Mr. Bailey's
poem, or some other cause which has not come to
light, the danger has gone by; and the naive advice
of Satan, and his piquant colloquies with Mr. Festus
Bailey, are confined to scattered private
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rehearsals. The truth is, Satanic colloquies are so frequent
now-a-days that no one can make a joke of
their novelty; and though comparatively few barristers
can talk to the devil as well as the barrister
Bailey, yet they make up amply by familiarity.
what they lack in elegance.
The Jane Eyre malady amounted to an epidemic,
and has sustained its ground, notwithstanding all
the efforts of the doctors, to this time. The authoress
is rapidly accumulating a stock of enthusiasm on
this side of the water, which, if it do not previously
explode, will by and by secure her a suite of rooms
at the Irving, a confectioner's image of the maniac
wife, and a classic ode from the Brigadier Morris,
about the Cyclop Fairfield, and the adorable Bronte!
The Typee disorder was a novel one, of uncertain
character, until clearly defined and made cognizable
by a London issue of the book of Mr. Melville.
It attacked with peculiar virulence adventurous
school-boys, and romantic young ladies who have
an eye for nature. At one time, shortly after the
publication of Mardi, the disorder assumed a threatening
malignancy, and patients were given over in
despair to the chrono-thermal and homœopathic
treatment. Latterly, however, the types have
changed, and Peregrine Pickle and Robinson Crusoe,
are safe cures for Redburn and White Jacket.
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A highly contagious literary disease broke out
not long since upon the appearance of a book called
the `Lady Alice.' It was supposed at first, from
the highly conscientious and Evangelical views
entertained by its publishers, to be of a religious
order, and not calculated to heat much blood out
of the pale of the true Church. It was found, however,
to produce almost a frenzy, which rapidly
overleaped all ecclesiastical barriers, and crept into
every denomination of readers and thinkers. The
worthy publishers undoubtedly felt some twinges
of conscience at their evangelical error, and made
such atonement as was in their power, by the issue
of a cheap edition.
A cheek which was for a time imposed upon it
by the superveyors of the Church, was found only
to `scatter' the disorder, and produce a general
eruption upon the literary surface of society. The
exquisite moral teachings of the book were enforced
by most happy example; and its religious character
was at once picturesque and artistic. It offered
pretty inside views of the highly advanced state of
European society, and of the artless blending of
nature, morals, and religious æsthetics. It offered
tempting footing for a new step in our social progress;
and while it will multiply worthily the
number of crosses, oratories, and confessional boxes,
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it will undoubtedly refine, in a corresponding degree,
the foolish rigidity of an old-fashioned, Bible morality.
Los Gringos, careless, slipshod, uneasy, yet with
a swift, invigorating canter, was rather in the
nature of a St. Vitus' dance, and could scarcely be
considered anything more than a cutaneous affection.
Under the warm treatment, and pleasantly
sweetened, mucilaginous drinks of the Home Journal
and De Trobriand's Revue, it will probably have
no very serious effects.
A kind of African fever, accompanied with great
debility, broke out on the appearance of Kaloolah;
its types were not unlike the Typee affection, and
will probably yield to the same treatment. The
author has been credited, I understand, in some
quarters, (much to my honor) with the editing of
the Lorgnette; but I would advise him, as he
values the integrity of those peculiar manifestations
which have followed upon his practice, and more
than all, as he cherishes his brilliant reputation for
chivalrous adventure with the colored woman of
Africa, to repel indignantly the charge.
St. Leger was spasmodic, but not so serious in
its manifestations, as might have been expected by
the reiterated warnings held out by the `Knickerbocker'
quarantine. As a book, St. Leger is
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remarkable for short sentences, short chapters,
German names, and Greek extracts. Though it
has not created a run of fever, it has peculiarities
of type, and an individualism of character, which
will be well worth a report in the next annual
account of our Dunglinson of literature—Dr. Griswold.
There are beside, a multitude of authors, whose
works, so far from breeding any sudden epidemic,
are most sedative in their operations; such writers
are nice to an exception, and are respectable almost
to a virtue. Their influence may be likened (to
carry out our medical typography) to a mild
influenza, characterized by frequent sneezings, to
which old ladies are peculiarly subject, and easily
curable by a little hot catmint, or a blue stocking
applied to the neck.
Among these authors, Mr. T—n may be said
to hold a place of proud eminence. Others would
fairly escape notice, and the symptoms which follow
upon their attack, would scarce be cognizable,
without the acute discernment of that highly respectable
literary practitioner, Dr. Griswold. He
can be cordially commended to the humbler members
of the literary profession, as a safe observer,
and one whose faculty of auscultation is most
minute. Would you believe it, my dear Fritz, that
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such laurels have been pinned to my ears, as the
association of my papers with this Coryphæus of
letters! I blush to find myself in the enviable
light; and to have become by the mere accident of
suspicion, the cynosure of admiring eyes!
The Willis affection is decidedly organic; and
the varieties in its manifestation, have been as
inconsiderable, as the changes in the types of the
infecting matter. Thus we have had Pencillings,
Inklings, Dashes, Glimpses, Ruralities, and People I
have Met, all pleasantly running together; and
any given quantity of which needs only the spice
of a prefatory chapter, and a variation upon his
most pliant name, to have the periodic run of a
fashionable fever. It is surely no little commendation
of an author, when by mere change of plate,
or dressing, the public will devour his old dishes
with as much gout, as the freshest meats of the
new writers. How his matter will be served up
next, and whether under imprimatur of N. P. W.,
or N. P. Willis, or N. Parker Willis, it would be
quite unsafe to predict. Indeed, Mr. W.'s supple
art of words renders it impossible to hazard any guess
whatever; and I should not be greatly surprised if
he were to change the name altogether, without at
all destroying its integral character.
Mr. Willis has certainly amused and instructed,
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in his way, a greater number of men, women, and
children, within the last ten years, than almost
any man on this side of the Atlantic; and his name
is as familiar (I speak of the family name, and not
the titular one) in eigar-shops and journalism, as it
is in libraries, and the boudoir. How many of his
readers he has improved in moral habit,—to how
many he has given the pabulum for stirring and
healthful thought, bracing up their nerves for hard
work, and quickening them into honest endeavor,
it would be very immodest in me to answer. How
much he might have done, none can tell better
than himself. Utility is surely not the prevailing
characteristic of his writings; and he will hardly
hope to be enrolled among the reformers of the
age, whatever may become of his friends, Horace
Greeley, Cornelius Matthews, or Dr. Griswold.
He is among the keenest of observers; and yet
he might voyage through California, seeing nothing
more than lack of ladies, and shabby toilettes; or
he might make the north-west passage, and note
only the icebergs and the northern lights. Yet not
a better man could be found to bring away those
minute observations of old countries which would
go to show their social complexion, and the condition
and habit of their civilization. After all,
whatever particular qualities may be wanting,
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critical analysis cannot impair the individuality of
his talent; and genius will be sure to leave a light
in its wake, whichever way it may steer.
You will smile, Fritz, at the compliment, yet
some wise ones have attributed our correspondence
to this prince of paragraphists. Now, with due
courtesy and modesty be it said, I cannot believe
that the piquant leaders of the Home Journal, and
the spice islands of his reading, would leave him
margin enough, either of time or industry, to throw
together the score of pages which light up each
week your solitude. Nor can I find any trace of
those prettily perplexed interchangements of phrase
which are the charm of Home Journalists,—nor
any of those light running similes which slide
through his periods, like a sunbeam through a leafy
thicket.
I am not conscious (and the public will acquit
me) of any of those waving sinuosities of expression
which belong to his language; and on which
you are borne along—now up, now down,—like a
boat floating over the swells of ocean. Here are
none of those easy convolutions of words, which
make the column of his type wind amid his subject-matter,
like a Kaloolah serpent gliding through
tropic foliage.
Mr. McCracken is a gentleman, who, though
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not widely known to type, is by no means without
his town admirers. A little disposition that
belongs to him, to play Timon—not in the wood,
but in the palace,—has called up his name in connection
with my papers; and I am led to infer
from all that can be learned, that the allegation
should be accepted as a compliment. It costs very
little to give compliments in the dark, as every plain
woman knows; and while making due acknowledgments
for the honor done me, I would at the same
time caution those who are quite positive that the
authorship lies in that quarter, (Judge B—
among the rest) against multiplying immoderately
their wagers.
Mr. Carl Benson (Bristed) has come in for a share
of the Lorgnette honor; for which it is understood
that his high classical attainments would amply
qualify him and, indeed, entirely ensure the paper
against any unfortunate errors of citation. You
know, Fritz, that I make no scholarly pretensions,
and that the trick of the pen is not old enough with
me, to render my lapsi pennœ either unusual, or
singular. Pray, Mr. B—, is it Seneca, who
says,—
Nil sapientiæ odiosius acumine nimio?
With all gratitude to those who have attributed
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my observations to the erudite, and irate antagonist
of a distinguished professor, it is yet a source of
regret, that even stray citations from classic authors,
should have turned the current of susicion
toward a scholar, and so induced the belief with
any, that these letters smack more of the closet
than of the world. The public may return Mr.
Benson to his special patronage of Catullus, and
`fast trotters,' and acquit him thoroughly of any
inaccuracies which have crept into the letters of
Timon.
Mr. R. G. White is a musical critic of the town,
a gentleman, as I am informed, of fair taste, and
considerable observation. Though not enrolled in
the Griswold galaxy of authors, he will yet come
under head of `authorling,' and has been honored
with a clay statuette. Though not over familiar
with his works, yet I am content to take the verdict
of the town-public in reckoning him a writer of
shrewdness, tact, and elegance—the more especially,
Fritz, since he is your reputed correspondent.
It would appear that he is an adept with an
opera-glass, and should know much of the goings
on in our brilliant town-world; at least so much of
it as appears within the doors of the Opera-house.
But he is, after all, I fancy, much too fond of his
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fiddle, and the composers, to have entered upon any
such employment, as has been gratuitously assigned
him.
Mr. Ik. Marvell (Mitchell) has also come in for
a share of the suspicion; and although, perhaps, I
ought to feel flattered by the association of my
work with the name of either author or authorling,
yet it does really seem that my unpretending, and
straightforward sentences show very little to evidence
the same paternity with the contortions and
abruptnesses of the `Battle Summer.' To say the
least of it, my errors against grammar have not been
willful; and my arrangement of style has not looked
toward the quackery of dramatic effect.
Yet withal the compliment is acknowledged,
since the same gentleman has written a most
creditable book of travels, which of an idle hour,
will repay a second reading. Mr. Marvell is certainly
a promising young man, and with thus much
of compliment, to sustain him for the loss, I relieve
him entirely of the new and unnecessarily imposed
burden of authorship.
Mr. Harry Franco (Briggs), a name not, perhaps,
new to you, Fritz, has also been associated with
our modest correspondence. He is said to possess
a ready wit, and variety of attainment which would
qualify him to do much better things than have
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appeared in the Lorgnette. A little reflection of
his honor was at one time, indeed, cast upon me
by the Mirror newspaper: but latterly the penetrating
editor of that journal finds my letters losing
their `Tom Peppery' character, and growing sadly
stupid. Let the kind gentlemen bear with me;
all philosophers cannot be Franklins: all restaurateurs
cannot be Downings: and all authors cannot
be Briggses.
Mr. Cornelius Matthews is another extraordinary
member of the literary society of the town, upon
whom has casually rested (I have it on his own
authority) a share of those capricious suspicions,
which Mr. Kernot's little weekly has created;—and
this, notwithstanding his recent `money-penny'
labors. But on the other hand, it is objected, that
no announcement of such implied authorship, or
flattering paragraph, has appeared among the editorials
of the Literary World. If John Timon had
been Matthews, there would have been surely some
trace of the heroic little Abel, if not allusion to the
gallant Puffer Hopkins. A stouter Philippic, too,
than I can by any possibility fish out of the inkstand,
would have startled my readers into an
international copyright frenzy, and possibly—an
Original Literature.
Mr. Paulding is understood to be still in working
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order; as his recent romance, and pungent political
letter abundantly prove. Although he is not given
to long speeches, he can yet guide a thumb and
forefinger to level his anti-Post letters at the `woolly-headed
fanatics' of whatever complexion: and,
perhaps, in virtue of this last avowal on his
part, hints have been bruited, that the hand
which furbished up the papers of the Salmagundi
may not have been ignorant of the management of
these Studies of the town. The hints, however, as
I understand, have confused other and younger
members of the author's family in the charge;—
on what ground, or with what semblance of truth,
it would hardly become me, who am ignorant of
the parties, to judge. I trust though, that if the
gentlemen alluded to are addicted to pen-work,
they will do no discredit to the elder of the name;
and if they should break ground with no worse laid
furrow than the pages of the Lorgnette, I hope
they may reap praise enough to pay them for their
pains.
Several young gentlemen just having completed
their studies, or recently returned from abroad, are
upon my publisher's list of reported authors. I
would gladly do them any reasonable favor. But
upon my conscience, it will cost too dearly to say
peccavi or peccabo, to any of the platulencies of
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boy-hood. Errors of manner and thought are become
ingrained; these are not the wanton fancies of a
fresh-read youth, however promising his wit; and
though these young gentlemen do not deny the imputation
for themselves, I must, in self-defence,
abjure the charge, and settle into the repose of
that maturity, which years only can give.
There are still others, the list now running to
thirty, who in their peculiar circles, are the undoubted
Timons. Of some of these, whose names
are at command, I can find no trace either in the
literary or moral world; and if so be they have
ever used a pen, I suspect they must belong to
that numerous, and deserving class, who are
immortalized by contribution of thrilling tales to
weekly newspapers, and whose readers are devout
admirers of Prof. Ingraham, and extravagantly fond
of peanuts.
I have been not a little amused and chagrined,
my dear Fritz, on hearing these letters attributed
to an eminent beau of the town—a man well posted
indeed, in all social chat, and lively enough as the
times go; but for the matter of this new charge, I
must beg to enter a modest caveat in his behalf.
John Timon is no professional beau, and whatever
the short-comings of his mental or moral endowments,
they have had none of that social rasping of
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the town, which cuts away the native qualities,
and leaves a be-padded, and be-curled woman of a
man. The study of mirror and cosmetics has
never engrossed him to the neglect of dictionaries:
and whatever else may be said in a hard way, let
him not be condemned, as one who hangs his social
ventures upon the heel of his pump, and who tunes
his talk to the play of a moustache.
Nor is it supposable that a man, devoting four or
five hours of the best of the day to the mirror, or
to the practice of a polka, can have leisure or industry
for this weekly labor. I have no faith in
those literateurs who are forever boasting of the
ease of writing;—as if a dozen pages for the
perusal, and the thought of a thousand, could be
thrown off in the interval between cigars. I have
too much respect for the public, and for you, Fritz,
to palm on your ear any such crude batter of words.
Time and attention are due even to the humility of
this toil; and though it does not smell of the lamp, or
show such touches of the file as it ought to do, be
assured that it is honored with the task-work of
determined handling. I have very little respect for
those reputations for quick parts, which are maintained
by a boasted carelessness and rapidity of
style: and if an unknown observer might hazard
the remark, our authors and authorlings, the half
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of them at least, would do well to hammer at their
metal far more vigorously, and with better directed
strokes, if they hope to put such temper in it as
will hold an edge, and cut.
Even now, Fritz, but half has been said, which
might be said upon the authors of the town: a host
remains, even omitting the ontire company of our
deserving and attractive authoresses. An apology,
perhaps, is due for having alluded more particularly
to such as have become associated by careless suspicion
with our correspondence; should the correspondence
continue, Fritz, not a pen-man, or a
claqueur, but shall be honored.
In alluding to individuals by name, in the present
paper, I have confined myself strictly to such as
have rendered the publicity warrantable by their
writings; and in alluding to their mental habit
and disposition, I have scrupulously forborne to
meddle with the interior social life, where it
appears to me no gentleman can safely venture
with his pen.
Much might be said, however, of the social position
of authors; and the influence of literary cultivation
upon the graduation of the fashionable scale
of the town; the topic must lie over to some season
when the game is a little more plump; and then,
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`please Providence,' I will throw a yellow cartridge
into the whole flock of poets and poetasters.
My publisher informs me, as the sheets are passing
through the press, that the twelve numbers now
issued will make a fair-sized volume; you may
possibly, therefore, my dear Fritz, miss the ensuing
week your accustomed visitant: and whether it
will make its appearance the coming month, will
depend very much on my own whim, and the
humor of the town. But do not be misled, Fritz;—
it has been thrown out by some that the Lorgnette
was nothing more than an eccentric charity; and
one very grave and important publisher assured me
that it was wholly paid for by its author, and then
placed, printed and bound, in the hands of the
publisher. The dear public will allow me to
correct this error, and to assure them that though
they may laugh at my labor, they are paying for
the laugh.
Nor is this said in vanity, but in justification; for
nothing seems to me a more absurd charity than
for a man to publish his thoughts, when the public
do not care enough for his thought, to pay for the
printing. Such a man (and on this point my opinion
will be obnoxious to many town-authors) had
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much better every way drop his surplus pence into
the parish poor box: in that case, he may console
himself with knowing that no one is pestered with
his thought, and that some poor souls may possibly
be stuffing their bellies with his money.
John Timon neither owes any man, nor is he
any man's creditor. He leaves off, if he leaves off,
as fairly as he started; and he will be at liberty to
begin, whenever his whim directs.
Not a tithe of the material is yet exhausted; the
whole race of belles are still sighing for their portraits;
the salon is without its picture; even the
politicians and the churches have been sadly neglected.
A chapter might easily be based upon the
vigorous researches, the family garrulity, and the
monthly chocolate of our New York Historical Society.
The journals, from the heavy counting-room
leviathan, to the motley, home-spun, patch-quilt
of the Tribune, are topics full of fatness; and even
the editor of the Democratic might find, that
though modesty and dignity may forbid me to follow
him to his social haunts, that I can unravel
some of his slave-knotted yarns, and put a finger to
his moral pulse, that will explain much of his political
weakness.
And now a word to those who cannot determine
`what the deuce I would be at,' and who are
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bothered by the sharp moral hits, that are scattered
over my social paintings. They neither see the
point, or the meaning of such things; they are
deserving of sympathy. You will remember our
quondam Yankee friend, fresh from country cookery,
who could make nothing, in the Parisian
restaurant, of a filet au sauce piquante—who would
have liked the beef indeed tolerably well, if they
had not spilled the cruet upon it!
The Grecians, on a time, used to go to their
Bacchan festivities with spears muffled in garlands—
showing the grace of flowers, but always ready
to prick a foe. Fritz,—the town-life is my Bacchan
festival; the town-topics are my Bacchan sport;
and this pen is my Bacchan thyrsus!
Timon.
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OPINIONS OF THE PRESS.
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From the Commercial Advertiser.
Light, pleasant, sketehy, and hits severely some popular foibles.
Second Notice.—The Lorgnette sustains its wit and humor, but we do not
like to see its quizzical author resorting thus early to correspondence.
From the Evening Mirror.
* * * The name of the writer is not given, but to use a vulgarism, it “sticks
out” in every line. The opera-goer's search for lodgings is so “Tom Peppery”
that we give it entire.
Second Notice.—The Lorgnette is growing stupid.
From the Sunday Courier.
This is the last stupidity in the form of a funny paper which has been spawned
upon the town. We should think its author was Dr. Potts or Dr. Tyng.
Second Notice.—This is the production of a dealer in fancy articles, Mr. J.
H. L. Merackan.
Third Notice.—This is not the production of Mr. J. H. L. Merackan, and
we beg his pardon.
From the Journal of Commerce.
The Lorgnette contains clever satire on the frivolity, folly, and insipidity of
fashionable life, written in a polished and elegant style.
From the Literary World.
Rather too quiet and Spectatorish.
From the Merchant's Day Book.
Of all the forlorn hopes ever put forward as specimens of New York wit and
humor, this is quite the most forlorn. It is promiscuously attributed to Richard
Grant White, Harry Franco Briggs, Gas-light Foster, and General Morris.
From the Home Journal.
— This is the taking title of a beautifully printed, and gracefully written
weekly, issued by H. Kernot.
Second Notice.—The Lorgnette is too well bred and considerate to have any
great rush of popularity; but the ladies all talk about it; and its style as a literary
composition improves curiously fast, seeming rather the relapse into a good
style, after assuming a new and worse one for novelty, than the progress of an
untried writer.
From the Two Worlds.
A piquant and amusing satire upon the manners of the fashionables of the day.
The field is a wide one, and the editor has availed himself of it, with much ingenuity
and art, and has given some very racy and striking sketches of the
loungers at the Opera, or on the pave.
From the Renue du Nouveau Monde.
Qui est il? Un éerivain? Un Journaliste? Un homme du monde? ou simplement
un homme d'esprit? Voilà ce que l'on se demande partout à propos du
Timon qui public ce qu'il voit à travers les verres de sa Lorgnette. Quelques
uns qui regardent curieusemment par le gros bout, croient deviner à l'orifice opposé
un œil de femme.
Le fait est que ce n'est pas A * * qui n'a pas assez de finesse, ni B * * qui n'a
pas assez d'esprit, ni C * * qui n'a pas assez de moderation, ni D * * assez de
style. Qui est-ce done? nous n'en savons rien. et souhaitons que personne n'en
sache davantage, afin de laisser à Timon toute liberté.
* * Nous ne saurions mentionner particulièrement aucun de ces croquis dont
la verité est incontestable comme le talent. Les memoranda d'un coureur de
salons à l'affùt de tout ce qui peut Iui conquérir une place dans la fashion, sont
vraiment pris sur nature, et al Lorgnette se transforme ainsi bien souvent en
daguerréotype où nous retrouvons jusque dans leur plus légers détails les conversations
que nous avons entendues, les travers qui nous ont fait sourire, et les ridicules
que la politesse nous oblige souvent dans le monde à saleur avec un sćrieux
méritoire.
From the New-York Express.
No. 1 of this publication was pleasant; No. 2, was less so; No. 3, stupid; and
in No. 4, we must say we see neither wit, humor, or the purpose. Ere long we
shall have to write over it the two last lines of old Malsherbe's epitah—
Elle a vecu ce que vivent les roses
L'espace d'un matin.
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CONTENTS OF THE TWELVE NUMBERS. —(First Series. )
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No. 1.—The Author's Purpose. 1
Lodgings in Town. 10
2.—Classification of Belles. 23
The Fashionable Man. 28
3.—Introductory. 43
Town Celebrities. 45
4.—Introductory. 65
Ways of getting into Society 68
Diary of a Fashion Hunter. 74
Correspondence. 85
5.—Respectables. 90
Old Beaux. 101
Correspondence. 107
6.—Introductory 111
Lions. 117
No 7.—A sly chat with his Publisher. 135
Hints for a great Literary Monument. 143
The Opera. 145
8.—People in Society. 161
Journal of a Lady in Society 175
Correspondence. 182
9.—Introductory. 187
The Fashionable Lady. 195
10.—Talk with the Ladies. 213
Correspondence. 226
The Bostonian. 231
11.—Country Strangers. 239
Family and Ancestors. 255
12—Authors and Authorlings. 267
Mitchell, Donald Grant, 1822-1908 [1850], The lorgnette, or, Studies of the town by an opera goer, volume 1 (Henry Kernot, Stringer & Townsend, New York) [word count] [eaf279v1].
