Where the brilliant Second Empire failed, the Republic had little chance of success. With each succeeding year the "Old Faubourg" withdrew more and more into its shell, going so far, after the fall of Mac Mahon, as to change its "season" to the spring, so that the balls and fetes it gave should not coincide with the "official" entertainments during the winter.

The next people to have a "shy" at the "Old Faubourg's" Gothic battlements were the Jews, who were victorious in a few light skirmishes and succeeded in capturing one or two illustrious husbands for their daughters. The wily Israelites, however, discovered that titled sons-in- law were expensive articles and often turned out unsatisfactorily, so they quickly desisted. The English, the most practical of societies, have always left the Faubourg alone. It has been reserved for our countrywomen to lay the most determined siege yet recorded to that untaken stronghold.

It is a characteristic of the American temperament to be unable to see a closed door without developing an intense curiosity to know what is behind; or to read "No Admittance to the Public" over an entrance without immediately determining to get inside at any price. So it is easy to understand the attraction an hermetically sealed society would have for our fair compatriots. Year after year they have flung themselves against its closed gateways. Repulsed, they have retired only to form again for the attack, but are as far away to-day from planting their flag in that citadel as when they first began. It does not matter to them what is inside; there may be (as in this case) only mouldy old halls and a group of people with antiquated ideas and ways. It is enough for a certain type of woman to know that she is not wanted in an exclusive circle, to be ready to die in the attempt to get there. This point of view reminds one of Mrs. Snob's saying about a new arrival at a hotel: "I am sure she must be 'somebody' for she was so rude to me when I spoke to her;" and her answer to her daughter when the girl said (on arriving at a watering- place) that she had noticed a very nice family "who look as if they wanted to know us, Mamma:"

"Then, my dear," replied Mamma Snob, "they certainly are not people we want to meet!"

The men in French society are willing enough to make acquaintance with foreigners. You may see the youth of the Faubourg dancing at American balls in Paris, or running over for occasional visits to this country. But when it comes to taking their women-kind with them, it is a different matter. Americans who have known well-born Frenchmen at school or college are surprised, on meeting them later, to be asked (cordially enough) to dine en garcon at a restaurant, although their Parisian friend is married. An Englishman's or American's first word would be on a like occasion:

"Come and dine with me to-night. I want to introduce you to my wife." Such an idea would never cross a Frenchman's mind!

One American I know is a striking example of this. He was born in Paris, went to school and college there, and has lived in that city all his life. His sister married a French nobleman. Yet at this moment, in spite of his wealth, his charming American wife, and many beautiful entertainments, he has not one warm French friend, or the entree on a footing of intimacy to a single Gallic house.

There is no analogy between the English aristocracy and the French nobility, except that they are both antiquated institutions; the English is the more harmful on account of its legislative power, the French is the more pretentious. The House of Lords is the most open club in London, the payment of an entrance-fee in the shape of a check to a party fund being an all-sufficient sesame. In France, one must be born in the magic circle. The spirit of the Emigration of 1793 is not yet extinct. The nobles live in their own world (how expressive the word is, seeming to exclude all the rest of mankind), pining after an impossible restauration, alien to the present day, holding aloof from politics for fear of coming in touch with the masses, with whom they pride themselves on having nothing in common.

What leads many people astray on this subject is that there has formed around this ancient society a circle composed of rich "outsiders," who have married into good families; and of eccentric members of the latter, who from a love of excitement or for interested motives have broken away from their traditions. Newly arrived Americans are apt to mistake this "world" for the real thing. Into this circle it is not difficult for foreigners who are rich and anxious to see something of life to gain admission. To be received by the ladies of this outer circle, seems to our compatriots to be an achievement, until they learn the real standing of their new acquaintances.

No gayer houses, however, exist than those of the new set. At their city or country houses, they entertain continually, and they are the people one meets toward five o'clock, on the grounds of the Polo Club, in the Bois, at fetes given by the Island Club of Puteaux, attending the race meetings, or dining at American houses. As far as amusement and fun go, one might seek much further and fare worse.

It is very, very rare that foreigners get beyond this circle. Occasionally there is a marriage between an American girl and some Frenchman of high rank. In these cases the girl is, as it were, swallowed up. Her family see little of her, she rarely appears in general society, and, little by little, she is lost to her old friends and relations. I know of several cases of this kind where it is to be doubted if a dozen Americans outside of the girls' connections know that such women exist. The fall in rents and land values has made the French aristocracy poor; it is only by the greatest economy (and it never entered into an American mind to conceive of such economy as is practised among them) that they succeed in holding on to their historical chateaux or beautiful city residences; so that pride plays a large part in the isolation in which they live.

The fact that no titles are recognized officially by the French government (the most they can obtain being a "courtesy" recognition) has placed these people in a singularly false position. An American girl who has married a Duke is a good deal astonished to find that she is legally only plain "Madame So and So;" that when her husband does his military service there is no trace of the high-sounding title to be found in his official papers. Some years ago, a colonel was rebuked because he allowed the Duc d'Alencon to be addressed as "Monseigneur" by the other officers of his regiment. This ought to make ambitious papas reflect, when they treat themselves to titled sons-in-law. They should at least try and get an article recognized by the law.

Most of what is written here is perfectly well known to resident Americans in Paris, and has been the cause of gradually splitting that once harmonious settlement into two perfectly distinct camps, between which no love is lost. The members of one, clinging to their countrymen's creed of having the best or nothing, have been contented to live in France and know but few French people, entertaining among themselves and marrying their daughters to Americans. The members of the other, who have "gone in" for French society, take what they can get, and, on the whole, lead very jolly lives. It often happens (perhaps it is only a coincidence) that ladies who have not been very successful at home are partial to this circle, where they easily find guests for their entertainments and the recognition their souls long for.

What the future of the "Great Faubourg" will be, it is hard to say. All hope of a possible restauration appears to be lost. Will the proud necks that refused to bend to the Orleans dynasty or the two "empires" bow themselves to the republican yoke? It would seem as if it must terminate in this way, for everything in this world must finish. But the end is not yet; one cannot help feeling sympathy for people who are trying to live up to their traditions and be true to such immaterial idols as "honor" and "family" in this discouragingly material age, when everything goes down before the Golden Calf. Nor does one wonder that men who can trace their ancestors back to the Crusades should hesitate to ally themselves with the last rich parvenu who has raised himself from the gutter, or resent the ardor with which the latest importation of American ambition tries to chum with them and push its way into their life.



No. 31—Men's Manners

Nothing makes one feel so old as to wake up suddenly, as it were, and realize that the conditions of life have changed, and that the standards you knew and accepted in your youth have been raised or lowered. The young men you meet have somehow become uncomfortably polite, offering you armchairs in the club, and listening with a shade of deference to your stories. They are of another generation; their ways are not your ways, nor their ambitions those you had in younger days. One is tempted to look a little closer, to analyze what the change is, in what this subtle difference consists, which you feel between your past and their present. You are surprised and a little angry to discover that, among other things, young men have better manners than were general among the youths of fifteen years ago.

Anyone over forty can remember three epochs in men's manners. When I was a very young man, there were still going about in society a number of gentlemen belonging to what was reverently called the "old school," who had evidently taken Sir Charles Grandison as their model, read Lord Chesterfield's letters to his son with attention, and been brought up to commence letters to their fathers, "Honored Parent," signing themselves "Your humble servant and respectful son." There are a few such old gentlemen still to be found in the more conservative clubs, where certain windows are tacitly abandoned to these elegant-mannered fossils. They are quite harmless unless you happen to find them in a reminiscent mood, when they are apt to be a little tiresome; it takes their rusty mental machinery so long to get working! Washington possesses a particularly fine collection among the retired army and navy officers and ex-officials. It is a fact well known that no one drawing a pension ever dies.

About 1875, a new generation with new manners began to make its appearance. A number of its members had been educated at English universities, and came home burning to upset old ways and teach their elders how to live. They broke away from the old clubs and started smaller and more exclusive circles among themselves, principally in the country. This was a period of bad manners. True to their English model, they considered it "good form" to be uncivil and to make no effort towards the general entertainment when in society. Not to speak more than a word or two during a dinner party to either of one's neighbors was the supreme chic. As a revolt from the twice-told tales of their elders they held it to be "bad form" to tell a story, no matter how fresh and amusing it might be. An unfortunate outsider who ventured to tell one in their club was crushed by having his tale received in dead silence. When it was finished one of the party would "ring the bell," and the circle order drinks at the expense of the man who had dared to amuse them. How the professional story-teller must have shuddered—he whose story never was ripe until it had been told a couple of hundred times, and who would produce a certain tale at a certain course as surely as clock-work.

That the story-telling type was a bore, I grant. To be grabbed on entering your club and obliged to listen to Smith's last, or to have the conversation after dinner monopolized by Jones and his eternal "Speaking of coffee, I remember once," etc. added an additional hardship to existence. But the opposite pose, which became the fashion among the reformers, was hardly less wearisome. To sit among a group of perfectly mute men, with an occasional word dropping into the silence like a stone in a well, was surely little better.

A girl told me she had once sat through an entire cotillion with a youth whose only remark during the evening had been (after absorbed contemplation of the articles in question), "How do you like my socks?"

On another occasion my neighbor at table said to me:

"I think the man on my right has gone to sleep. He is sitting with his eyes closed!" She was mistaken. He was practising his newly acquired "repose of manner," and living up to the standard of his set.

The model young man of that period had another offensive habit, his pose of never seeing you, which got on the nerves of his elders to a considerable extent. If he came into a drawing-room where you were sitting with a lady, he would shake hands with her and begin a conversation, ignoring your existence, although you may have been his guest at dinner the night before, or he yours. This was also a tenet of his creed borrowed from trans-Atlantic cousins, who, by the bye, during the time I speak of, found America, and especially our Eastern states, a happy hunting-ground,—all the clubs, country houses, and society generally opening their doors to the "sesame" of English nationality. It took our innocent youths a good ten years to discover that there was no reciprocity in the arrangement; it was only in the next epoch (the list of the three referred to) that our men recovered their self-respect, and assumed towards foreigners in general the attitude of polite indifference which is their manner to us when abroad. Nothing could have been more provincial and narrow than the ideas of our "smart" men at that time. They congregated in little cliques, huddling together in public, and cracking personal old jokes; but were speechless with mauvaise honte if thrown among foreigners or into other circles of society. All this is not to be wondered at considering the amount of their general education and reading. One charming little custom then greatly in vogue among our jeunesse doree was to remain at a ball, after the other guests had retired, tipsy, and then break anything that came to hand. It was so amusing to throw china, glass, or valuable plants, out of the windows, to strip to the waist and box or bait the tired waiters.

I look at the boys growing up around me with sincere admiration, they are so superior to their predecessors in breeding, in civility, in deference to older people, and in a thousand other little ways that mark high-bred men. The stray Englishman, of no particular standing at home no longer finds our men eager to entertain him, to put their best "hunter" at his disposition, to board, lodge, and feed him indefinitely, or make him honorary member of all their clubs. It is a constant source of pleasure to me to watch this younger generation, so plainly do I see in them the influence of their mothers—women I knew as girls, and who were so far ahead of their brothers and husbands in refinement and culture. To have seen these girls marry and bring up their sons so well has been a satisfaction and a compensation for many disillusions. Woman's influence will always remain the strongest lever that can be brought to bear in raising the tone of a family; it is impossible not to see about these young men a reflection of what we found so charming in their mothers. One despairs at times of humanity, seeing vulgarity and snobbishness riding triumphantly upward; but where the tone of the younger generation is as high as I have lately found it, there is still much hope for the future.



No. 32—An Ideal Hostess

The saying that "One-half of the world ignores how the other half lives" received for me an additional confirmation this last week, when I had the good fortune to meet again an old friend, now for some years retired from the stage, where she had by her charm and beauty, as well as by her singing, held all the Parisian world at her pretty feet.

Our meeting was followed on her part by an invitation to take luncheon with her the next day, "to meet a few friends, and talk over old times." So half-past twelve (the invariable hour for the "second breakfast," in France) the following day found me entering a shady drawing-room, where a few people were sitting in the cool half-light that strayed across from a canvas-covered balcony furnished with plants and low chairs. Beyond one caught a glimpse of perhaps the gayest picture that the bright city of Paris offers,—the sweep of the Boulevard as it turns to the Rue Royale, the flower market, gay with a thousand colors in the summer sunshine, while above all the color and movement, rose, cool and gray, the splendid colonnade of the Madeleine. The rattle of carriages, the roll of the heavy omnibuses and the shrill cries from the street below floated up, softened into a harmonious murmur that in no way interfered with our conversation, and is sweeter than the finest music to those who love their Paris.

Five or six rooms en suite opening on the street, and as many more on a large court, formed the apartment, where everything betrayed the artiste and the singer. The walls, hung with silk or tapestry, held a collection of original drawings and paintings, a fortune in themselves; the dozen portraits of our hostess in favorite roles were by men great in the art world; a couple of pianos covered with well-worn music and numberless photographs signed with names that would have made an autograph-fiend's mouth water.

After a gracious, cooing welcome, more whispered than spoken, I was presented to the guests I did not know. Before this ceremony was well over, two maids in black, with white caps, opened a door into the dining- room and announced luncheon. As this is written on the theme that "people know too little how their neighbors live," I give the menu. It may amuse my readers and serve, perhaps, as a little object lesson to those at home who imagine that quantity and not quality is of importance.

Our gracious hostess had earned a fortune in her profession (and I am told that two chefs preside over her simple meals); so it was not a spirit of economy which dictated this simplicity. At first, hors d'oeuvres were served,—all sorts of tempting little things,—very thin slices of ham, spiced sausages, olives and caviar, and eaten—not merely passed and refused. Then came the one hot dish of the meal. "One!" I think I hear my reader exclaim. Yes, my friend, but that one was a marvel in its way. Chicken a l'espagnole, boiled, and buried in rice and tomatoes cooked whole—a dish to be dreamed of and remembered in one's prayers and thanksgivings! After at least two helpings each to this chef-d'oeuvre, cold larded fillet and a meat pate were served with the salad. Then a bit of cheese, a beaten cream of chocolate, fruit, and bon-bons. For a drink we had the white wine from which champagne is made (by a chemical process and the addition of many injurious ingredients); in other words, a pure brut champagne with just a suggestion of sparkle at the bottom of your glass. All the party then migrated together into the smoking-room for cigarettes, coffee, and a tiny glass of liqueur.

These details have been given at length, not only because the meal seemed to me, while I was eating it, to be worthy of whole columns of print, but because one of the besetting sins of our dear land is to serve a profusion of food no one wants and which the hostess would never have dreamed of ordering had she been alone.

Nothing is more wearisome than to sit at table and see course after course, good, bad, and indifferent, served, after you have eaten what you want. And nothing is more vulgar than to serve them; for either a guest refuses a great deal of the food and appears uncivil, or he must eat, and regret it afterwards. If we ask people to a meal, it should be to such as we eat, as a general thing, ourselves, and such as they would have at home. Otherwise it becomes ostentation and vulgarity. Why should one be expelled to eat more than usual because a friend has been nice enough to ask one to take one's dinner with him, instead of eating it alone? It is the being among friends that tempts, not the food; the fact at skilful waiters have been able to serve a dozen varieties of fish, flesh, and fowl during the time you were at table has added little to any one's pleasure. On the contrary! Half the time one eats from pure absence of mind, a number of most injurious mixtures and so prepares an awful to- morrow and the foundation of many complicated diseases.

I see Smith and Jones daily at the club, where we dine cheerfully together on soup, a cut of the joint, a dessert, and drink a pint of claret. But if either Mrs. Smith or Mrs. Jones asks me to dinner, we have eight courses and half as many wines, and Smith will say quite gravely to me, "Try this '75 'Perrier Jouet'," as if he were in the habit of drinking it daily. It makes me smile, for he would as soon think of ordering a bottle of that wine at the club as he would think of ordering a flask of nectar.

But to return to our "mutton." As we had none of us eaten too much (and so become digesting machines), we were cheerful and sprightly. A little music followed and an author repeated some of his poetry. I noticed that during the hour before we broke up our hostess contrived to have a little talk with each of her guests, which she made quite personal, appearing for the moment as though the rest of the world did not exist for her, than which there is no more subtle flattery, and which is the act of a well-bred and appreciative woman. Guests cannot be treated en masse any more than food; to ask a man to your house is not enough. He should be made to feel, if you wish him to go away with a pleasant remembrance of the entertainment, that his presence has in some way added to it and been a personal pleasure to his host.

A good soul that all New York knew a few years ago, whose entertainments were as though the street had been turned into a salon for the moment, used to go about among her guests saying, "There have been one hundred and seventy-five people here this Thursday, ten more than last week," with such a satisfied smile, that you felt that she had little left to wish for, and found yourself wondering just which number you represented in her mind. When you entered she must have murmured a numeral to herself as she shook your hand.

There is more than one house in New York where I have grave doubts if the host and hostess are quite sure of my name when I dine there; after an abstracted welcome, they rarely put themselves out to entertain their guests. Black coats and evening dresses alternate in pleasing perspective down the long line of their table. Their gold plate is out, and the chef has been allowed to work his own sweet will, so they give themselves no further trouble.

Why does not some one suggest to these amphitrions to send fifteen dollars in prettily monogrammed envelopes to each of their friends, requesting them to expend it on a dinner. The compliment would be quite as personal, and then the guests might make up little parties to suit themselves, which would be much more satisfactory than going "in" with some one chosen at hazard from their host's visiting list, and less fatiguing to that gentleman and his family.



No. 33—The Introducer

We all suffer more or less from the perennial "freshness" of certain acquaintances—tiresome people whom a misguided Providence has endowed with over-flowing vitality and an irrepressible love of their fellowmen, and who, not content with looking on life as a continual "spree," insist on making others happy in spite of themselves. Their name is legion and their presence ubiquitous, but they rarely annoy as much as when disguised under the mask of the "Introducer." In his clutches one is helpless. It is impossible to escape from such philanthropic tyranny. He, in his freshness, imagines that to present human beings to each other is his mission in this world and moves through life making these platonic unions, oblivious, as are other match-makers, of the misery he creates.

If you are out for a quiet stroll, one of these genial gentlemen is sure to come bounding up, and without notice or warning present you to his "friend,"—the greater part of the time a man he has met only an hour before, but whom he endows out of the warehouse of his generous imagination with several talents and all the virtues. In order to make the situation just one shade more uncomfortable, this kindly bore proceeds to sing a hymn of praise concerning both of you to your faces, adding, in order that you may both feel quite friendly and pleasant:

"I know you two will fancy each other, you are so alike,"—a phrase neatly calculated to nip any conversation in the bud. You detest the unoffending stranger on the spot and would like to kill the bore. Not to appear an absolute brute you struggle through some commonplace phrases, discovering the while that your new acquaintance is no more anxious to know you, than you are to meet him; that he has not the slightest idea who you are, neither does he desire to find out. He classes you with the bore, and his one idea, like your own, is to escape. So that the only result of the Introducer's good-natured interference has been to make two fellow-creatures miserable.

A friend was telling me the other day of the martyrdom he had suffered from this class. He spoke with much feeling, as he is the soul of amiability, but somewhat short-sighted and afflicted with a hopelessly bad memory for faces. For the last few years, he has been in the habit of spending one or two of the winter months in Washington, where his friends put him up at one club or another. Each winter on his first appearance at one of these clubs, some kindly disposed old fogy is sure to present him to a circle of the members, and he finds himself indiscriminately shaking hands with Judges and Colonels. As little or no conversation follows these introductions to fix the individuality of the members in his mind, he unconsciously cuts two-thirds of his newly acquired circle the next afternoon, and the following winter, after a ten- months' absence, he innocently ignores the other third. So hopelessly has he offended in this way, that last season, on being presented to a club member, the latter peevishly blurted out:

"This is the fourth time I have been introduced to Mr. Blank, but he never remembers me," and glared coldly at him, laying it all down to my friend's snobbishness and to the airs of a New Yorker when away from home. If instead of being sacrificed to the introducer's mistaken zeal my poor friend had been left quietly to himself, he would in good time have met the people congenial to him and avoided giving offence to a number of kindly gentlemen.

This introducing mania takes an even more aggressive form in the hostess, who imagines that she is lacking in hospitality if any two people in her drawing-room are not made known to each other. No matter how interested you may be in a chat with a friend, you will see her bearing down upon you, bringing in tow the one human being you have carefully avoided for years. Escape seems impossible, but as a forlorn hope you fling yourself into conversation with your nearest neighbor, trying by your absorbed manner to ward off the calamity. In vain! With a tap on your elbow your smiling hostess introduces you and, having spoiled your afternoon, flits off in search of other prey.

The question of introductions is one on which it is impossible to lay down any fixed rules. There must constantly occur situations where one's acts must depend upon a kindly consideration for other people's feelings, which after all, is only another name for tact. Nothing so plainly shows the breeding of a man or woman as skill in solving problems of this kind without giving offence.

Foreigners, with their greater knowledge of the world, rarely fall into the error of indiscriminate introducing, appreciating what a presentation means and what obligations it entails. The English fall into exactly the contrary error from ours, and carry it to absurd lengths. Starting with the assumption that everybody knows everybody, and being aware of the general dread of meeting "detrimentals," they avoid the difficulty by making no introductions. This may work well among themselves, but it is trying to a stranger whom they have been good enough to ask to their tables, to sit out the meal between two people who ignore his presence and converse across him; for an Englishman will expire sooner than speak to a person to whom he has not been introduced.

The French, with the marvellous tact that has for centuries made them the law-givers on all subjects of etiquette and breeding, have another way of avoiding useless introductions. They assume that two people meeting in a drawing-room belong to the same world and so chat pleasantly with those around them. On leaving the salon the acquaintance is supposed to end, and a gentleman who should at another time or place bow or speak to the lady who had offered him a cup of tea and talked pleasantly to him over it at a friend's reception, would commit a gross breach of etiquette.

I was once present at a large dinner given in Cologne to the American Geographical Society. No sooner was I seated than my two neighbors turned towards me mentioning their names and waiting for me to do the same. After that the conversation flowed on as among friends. This custom struck me as exceedingly well-bred and calculated to make a foreigner feel at his ease.

Among other curious types, there are people so constituted that they are unhappy if a single person can be found in the room to whom they have not been introduced. It does not matter who the stranger may be or what chance there is of finding him congenial. They must be presented; nothing else will content them. If you are chatting with a friend you feel a pull at your sleeve, and in an audible aside, they ask for an introduction. The aspirant will then bring up and present the members of his family who happen to be near. After that he seems to be at ease, and having absolutely nothing to say will soon drift off. Our public men suffer terribly from promiscuous introductions; it is a part of a political career; a good memory for names and faces and a cordial manner under fire have often gone a long way in floating a statesman on to success.

Demand, we are told, creates supply. During a short stay in a Florida hotel last winter, I noticed a curious little man who looked like a cross between a waiter and a musician. As he spoke to me several times and seemed very officious, I asked who he was. The answer was so grotesque that I could not believe my ears. I was told that he held the position of official "introducer," or master of ceremonies, and that the guests under his guidance became known to each other, danced, rode, and married to their own and doubtless to his satisfaction. The further west one goes the more pronounced this mania becomes. Everybody is introduced to everybody on all imaginable occasions. If a man asks you to take a drink, he presents you to the bar-tender. If he takes you for a drive, the cab-driver is introduced. "Boots" makes you acquainted with the chambermaid, and the hotel proprietor unites you in the bonds of friendship with the clerk at the desk. Intercourse with one's fellows becomes one long debauch of introduction. In this country where every liberty is respected, it is a curious fact that we should be denied the most important of all rights, that of choosing our acquaintances.



No. 34—A Question and an Answer

DEAR IDLER:

I have been reading your articles in The Evening Post. They are really most amusing! You do know such a lot about people and things, that I am tempted to write and ask you a question on a subject that is puzzling me. What is it that is necessary to succeed—socially? There! It is out! Please do not laugh at me. Such funny people get on and such clever, agreeable ones fail, that I am all at sea. Now do be nice and answer me, and you will have a very grateful

ADMIRER.

The above note, in a rather juvenile feminine hand, and breathing a faint perfume of violette de Parme, was part of the morning's mail that I found lying on my desk a few days ago, in delightful contrast to the bills and advertisements which formed the bulk of my correspondence. It would suppose a stoicism greater than I possess, not to have felt a thrill of satisfaction in its perusal. There was, then, some one who read with pleasure what I wrote, and who had been moved to consult me on a question (evidently to her) of importance. I instantly decided to do my best for the edification of my fair correspondent (for no doubt entered my head that she was both young and fair), the more readily because that very question had frequently presented itself to my own mind on observing the very capricious choice of Dame "Fashion" in the distribution of her favors.

That there are people who succeed brilliantly and move from success to success, amid an applauding crowd of friends and admirers, while others, apparently their superiors in every way, are distanced in the race, is an undeniable fact. You have but to glance around the circle of your acquaintances and relations to be convinced of this anomaly. To a reflecting mind the question immediately presents itself, Why is this? General society is certainly cultivated enough to appreciate intelligence and superior endowments. How then does it happen that the social favorites are so often lacking in the qualities which at a first glance would seem indispensable to success?

Before going any further let us stop a moment, and look at the subject from another side, for it is more serious than appears to be on the surface. To be loved by those around us, to stand well in the world, is certainly the most legitimate as well as the most common of ambitions, as well as the incentive to most of the industry and perseverance in life. Aside from science, which is sometimes followed for itself alone, and virtue, which we are told looks for no other reward, the hope which inspires a great deal of the persistent efforts we see, is generally that of raising one's self and those one loves by one's efforts into a sphere higher than where cruel fate had placed them; that they, too, may take their place in the sunshine and enjoy the good things of life. This ambition is often purely disinterested; a life of hardest toil is cheerfully borne, with the hope (for sole consolation) that dear ones will profit later by all the work, and live in a circle the patient toiler never dreams of entering. Surely he is a stern moralist who would deny this satisfaction to the breadwinner of a family.

There are doubtless many higher motives in life, more elevated goals toward which struggling humanity should strive. If you examine the average mind, however, you will be pretty sure to find that success is the touchstone by which we judge our fellows and what, in our hearts, we admire the most. That is not to be wondered at, either, for we have done all we can to implant it there. From a child's first opening thought, it is impressed upon him that the great object of existence is to succeed. Did a parent ever tell a child to try and stand last in his class? And yet humility is a virtue we admire in the abstract. Are any of us willing to step aside and see our inferiors pass us in the race? That is too much to ask of poor humanity. Were other and higher standards to be accepted, the structure of civilization as it exists to-day would crumble away and the great machine run down.

In returning to my correspondent and her perfectly legitimate desire to know the road to success, we must realize that to a large part of the world social success is the only kind they understand. The great inventors and benefactors of mankind live too far away on a plane by themselves to be the object of jealousy to any but a very small circle; on the other hand, in these days of equality, especially in this country where caste has never existed, the social world seems to hold out alluring and tangible gifts to him who can enter its enchanted portals. Even politics, to judge by the actions of some of our legislators, of late, would seem to be only a stepping-stone to its door!

"But my question," I hear my fair interlocutor saying. "You are not answering it!"

All in good time, my dear. I am just about to do so. Did you ever hear of Darwin and his theory of "selection?" It would be a slight to your intelligence not to take it for granted that you had. Well, my observations in the world lead me to believe that we follow there unconsciously, the same rules that guide the wild beasts in the forest. Certain individuals are endowed by nature with temperaments which make them take naturally to a social life and shine there. In it they find their natural element. They develop freely just where others shrivel up and disappear. There is continually going on unseen a "natural selection," the discarding of unfit material, the assimilation of new and congenial elements from outside, with the logical result of a survival of the fittest. Aside from this, you will find in "the world," as anywhere else, that the person who succeeds is generally he who has been willing to give the most of his strength and mind to that one object, and has not allowed the flowers on the hillside to distract him from his path, remembering also that genius is often but the "capacity for taking infinite pains."

There are people so constituted that they cheerfully give the efforts of a lifetime to the attainment of a brilliant social position. No fatigue is too great, and no snubs too bitter to be willingly undergone in pursuit of the cherished object. You will never find such an individual, for instance, wandering in the flowery byways that lead to art or letters, for that would waste his time. If his family are too hard to raise, he will abandon the attempt and rise without them, for he cannot help himself. He is but an atom working as blindly upward as the plant that pushes its mysterious way towards the sun. Brains are not necessary. Good looks are but a trump the more in the "hand." Manners may help, but are not essential. The object can be and is attained daily without all three. Wealth is but the oil that makes the machinery run more smoothly. The all-important factor is the desire to succeed, so strong that it makes any price seem cheap, and that can pay itself by a step gained, for mortification and weariness and heart-burnings.

There, my dear, is the secret of success! I stop because I feel myself becoming bitter, and that is a frame of mind to be carefully avoided, because it interferes with the digestion and upsets one's gentle calm! I have tried to answer your question. The answer resolves itself into these two things; that it is necessary to be born with qualities which you may not possess, and calls for sacrifices you would doubtless be unwilling to make. It remains with you to decide if the little game is worth the candle. The delightful common sense I feel quite sure you possess reassures me as to your answer.

Take gayly such good things as may float your way, and profit by them while they last. Wander off into all the cross-roads that tempt you. Stop often to lend a helping hand to a less fortunate traveller. Rest in the heat of the day, as your spirit prompts you. Sit down before the sunset and revel in its beauty and you will find your voyage through life much more satisfactory to look back to and full of far sweeter memories than if by sacrificing any of these pleasures you had attained the greatest of "positions."



No. 35—Living on your Friends

Thackeray devoted a chapter in "Vanity Fair" to the problem "How to Live Well on Nothing a Year." It was neither a very new nor a very ingenious expedient that "Becky" resorted to when she discounted her husband's position and connection to fleece the tradespeople and cheat an old family servant out of a year's rent. The author might more justly have used his clever phrase in describing "Major Pendennis's" agreeable existence. We have made great progress in this, as in almost every other mode of living, in the latter half of the Victorian era; intelligent individuals of either sex, who know the ropes, can now as easily lead the existence of a multi-millionaire (with as much satisfaction to themselves and their friends) as though the bank account, with all its attendant worries, stood in their own names. This subject is so vast, its ramifications so far-reaching and complicated, that one hesitates before launching into an analysis of it. It will be better simply to give a few interesting examples, and a general rule or two, for the enlightenment and guidance of ingenious souls.

Human nature changes little; all that our educational and social training has accomplished is a smoothing of the surface. One of the most striking proofs of this is, that here in our primitive country, as soon as accumulation of capital allowed certain families to live in great luxury, they returned to the ways of older aristocracies, and, with other wants, felt the necessity of a court about them, ladies and gentlemen in waiting, pages and jesters. Nature abhors a vacuum, so a class of people immediately felt an irresistible impulse to rush in and fill the void. Our aristocrats were not even obliged to send abroad to fill these vacancies, as they were for their footmen and butlers; the native article was quite ready and willing and, considering the little practice it could have had, proved wonderfully adapted to the work.

When the mania for building immense country houses and yachts (the owning of opera boxes goes a little further back) first attacked this country, the builders imagined that, once completed, it would be the easiest, as well as the most delightful task to fill them with the pick of their friends, that they could get all the talented and agreeable people they wanted by simply making a sign. To their astonishment, they discovered that what appeared so simple was a difficult, as well as a thankless labor. I remember asking a lady who had owned a "proscenium" at the old Academy, why she had decided not to take a box in the (then) new opera- house.

"Because, having passed thirty years of my life inviting people to sit in my box, I intend now to rest." It is very much the same thing with yachts. A couple who had determined to go around the world, in their lately finished boat, were dumbfounded to find their invitations were not eagerly accepted. After exhausting the small list of people they really wanted, they began with others indifferent to them, and even then filled out their number with difficulty. A hostess who counts on a series of house parties through the autumn months, must begin early in the summer if she is to have the guests she desires.

It is just here that the "professional," if I may be allowed to use such an expression, comes to the front. He is always available. It is indifferent to him if he starts on a tour around the world or for a winter spree to Montreal. He is always amusing, good-humored, and can be counted on at the last moment to fill any vacant place, without being the least offended at the tardy invitation, for he belongs to the class who have discovered "how to live well on nothing a year." Luxury is as the breath of his nostrils, but his means allow of little beyond necessities. The temptation must be great when everything that he appreciates most (and cannot afford) is urged upon him. We should not pose as too stern moralists, and throw stones at him; for there may enter more "best French plate" into the composition of our own houses than we imagine.

It is here our epoch shows its improvement over earlier and cruder days. At present no toad-eating is connected with the acceptance of hospitality, or, if occasionally a small "batrachian" is offered, it is so well disguised by an accomplished chef, and served on such exquisite old Dresden, that it slips down with very little effort. Even this rarely occurs, unless the guest has allowed himself to become the inmate of a residence or yacht. Then he takes his chance with other members of the household, and if the host or hostess happens to have a bad temper as a set-off to their good table, it is apt to fare ill with our friend.

So far, I have spoken of this class in the masculine, which is an error, as the art is successfully practised by the weaker sex, with this shade of difference. As an unmarried woman is in less general demand, she is apt to attach herself to one dear friend, always sure to be a lady in possession of fine country and city houses and other appurtenances of wealth, often of inferior social standing; so that there is give and take, the guest rendering real service to an ambitious hostess. The feminine aspirant need not be handsome. On the contrary, an agreeable plainness is much more acceptable, serving as a foil. But she must be excellent in all games, from golf to piquet, and willing to play as often and as long as required. She must also cheerfully go in to dinner with the blue ribbon bore of the evening, only asked on account of his pretty wife (by the bye, why is it that Beauty is so often flanked by the Beast?), and sit between him and the "second prize" bore. These two worthies would have been the portion of the hostess fifteen years ago; she would have considered it her duty to absorb them and prevent her other guests suffering. Mais nous avons change tout cela. The lady of the house now thinks first of amusing herself, and arranges to sit between two favorites.

Society has become much simpler, and especially less expensive, for unmarried men than it used to be. Even if a hostess asks a favor in return for weeks of hospitality, the sacrifice she requires of a man is rarely greater than a cotillion with an unattractive debutante whom she is trying to launch; or the sitting through a particularly dull opera in order to see her to the carriage, her lord and master having slipped off early to his club and a quiet game of pool. Many people who read these lines are old enough to remember that prehistoric period when unmarried girls went to the theatre and parties, alone with the men they knew. This custom still prevails in our irrepressible West. It was an arrangement by which all the expenses fell on the man—theatre tickets, carriages if it rained, and often a bit of supper after. If a youth asked a girl to dance the cotillion, he was expected to send a bouquet, sure to cost between twenty and twenty-five dollars. What a blessed change for the impecunious swell when all this went out of fashion! New York is his paradise now; in other parts of the world something is still expected of him. In France it takes the form of a handsome bag of bon-bons on New Year's Day, if he has accepted hospitality during the past year. While here he need do absolutely nothing (unless he wishes to), the occasional leaving of a card having been suppressed of late by our jeunesse doree, five minutes of their society in an opera box being estimated (by them) as ample return for a dinner or a week in a country house.

The truth of it is, there are so few men who "go out" (it being practically impossible for any one working at a serious profession to sit up night after night, even if he desired), and at the same time so many women insist on entertaining to amuse themselves or better their position, that the men who go about get spoiled and almost come to consider the obligation conferred, when they dine out. There is no more amusing sight than poor paterfamilias sitting in the club between six and seven P.M. pretending to read the evening paper, but really with his eve on the door; he has been sent down by his wife to "get a man," as she is one short for her dinner this evening. He must be one who will fit in well with the other guests; hence papa's anxious look, and the reason the editorial gets so little of his attention! Watch him as young "professional" lounges in. There is just his man—if he only happens to be disengaged! You will see "Pater" cross the room and shake hands, then, after a few minutes' whispered conversation, he will walk down to his coupe with such a relieved look on his face. Young "professional," who is in faultless evening dress, will ring for a cocktail and take up the discarded evening paper to pass the time till eight twenty-five.

Eight twenty-five, advisedly, for he will be the last to arrive, knowing, clever dog, how much eclat it gives one to have a room full of people asking each other, "Whom are we waiting for?" when the door opens, and he is announced. He will stay a moment after the other guests have gone and receive the most cordial pressures of the hand from a grateful hostess (if not spoken words of thanks) in return for eating an exquisitely cooked dinner, seated between two agreeable women, drinking irreproachable wine, smoking a cigar, and washing the whole down with a glass of 1830 brandy, or some priceless historic madeira.

There is probably a moral to be extracted from all this. But frankly my ethics are so mixed that I fail to see where the blame lies, and which is the less worthy individual, the ostentatious axe-grinding host or the interested guest. One thing, however, I see clearly, viz., that life is very agreeable to him who starts in with few prejudices, good manners, a large amount of well-concealed "cheek" and the happy faculty of taking things as they come.



No. 36—American Society in Italy

The phrase at the head of this chapter and other sentences, such as "American Society in Paris," or London, are constantly on the lips of people who should know better. In reality these societies do not exist. Does my reader pause, wondering if he can believe his eyes? He has doubtless heard all his life of these delightful circles, and believes in them. He may even have dined, en passant, at the "palace" of some resident compatriot in Rome or Florence, under the impression that he was within its mystic limits. Illusion! An effect of mirage, making that which appears quite tangible and solid when viewed from a distance dissolve into thin air as one approaches; like the mirage, cheating the weary traveller with a vision of what he most longs for.

Forty, even fifty years ago, there lived in Rome a group of very agreeable people; Story and the two Greenoughs and Crawford, the sculptor (father of the brilliant novelist of to-day); Charlotte Cushman (who divided her time between Rome and Newport), and her friend Miss Stebbins, the sculptress, to whose hands we owe the bronze fountain on the Mall in our Park; Rogers, then working at the bronze doors of our capitol, and many other cultivated and agreeable people. Hawthorne passed a couple of winters among them, and the tone of that society is reflected in his "Marble Faun." He took Story as a model for his "Kenyon," and was the first to note the exotic grace of an American girl in that strange setting. They formed as transcendental and unworldly a group as ever gathered about a "tea" table. Great things were expected of them and their influence, but they disappointed the world, and, with the exception of Hawthorne, are being fast forgotten.

Nothing could be simpler than life in the papal capital in those pleasant days. Money was rare, but living as delightfully inexpensive. It was about that time, if I do not mistake, that a list was published in New York of the citizens worth one hundred thousand dollars; and it was not a long one! The Roman colony took "tea" informally with each other, and "received" on stated evenings in their studios (when mulled claret and cakes were the only refreshment offered; very bad they were, too), and migrated in the summer to the mountains near Rome or to Sorrento. In the winter months their circle was enlarged by a contingent from home. Among wealthy New Yorkers, it was the fashion in the early fifties to pass a winter in Rome, when, together with his other dissipations, paterfamilias would sit to one of the American sculptors for his bust, which accounts for the horrors one now runs across in dark corners of country houses,—ghostly heads in "chin whiskers" and Roman draperies.

The son of one of these pioneers, more rich than cultivated, noticed the other day, while visiting a friend of mine, an exquisite eighteenth-century bust of Madame de Pompadour, the pride of his hostess's drawing-room. "Ah!" said Midas, "are busts the fashion again? I have one of my father, done in Rome in 1850. I will bring it down and put it in my parlor."

The travellers consulted the residents in their purchases of copies of the old masters, for there were fashions in these luxuries as in everything else. There was a run at that time on the "Madonna in the Chair;" and "Beatrice Cenci" was long prime favorite. Thousands of the latter leering and winking over her everlasting shoulder, were solemnly sent home each year. No one ever dreamed of buying an original painting! The tourists also developed a taste for large marble statues, "Nydia, the Blind Girl of Pompeii" (people read Bulwer, Byron and the Bible then) being in such demand that I knew one block in lower Fifth Avenue that possessed seven blind Nydias, all life-size, in white marble,—a form of decoration about as well adapted to those scanty front parlors as a steam engine or a carriage and pair would have been. I fear Bulwer's heroine is at a discount now, and often wonder as I see those old residences turning into shops, what has become of the seven white elephants and all their brothers and sisters that our innocent parents brought so proudly back from Italy! I have succeeded in locating two statues evidently imported at that time. They grace the back steps of a rather shabby villa in the country,—Demosthenes and Cicero, larger than life, dreary, funereal memorials of the follies of our fathers.

The simple days we have been speaking of did not, however, outlast the circle that inaugurated them. About 1867 a few rich New Yorkers began "trying to know the Italians" and go about with them. One family, "up to snuff" in more senses than one, married their daughter to the scion of a princely house, and immediately a large number of her compatriots were bitten with the madness of going into Italian society.

In 1870, Rome became the capital of united Italy. The court removed there. The "improvements" began. Whole quarters were remodelled, and the dear old Rome of other days, the Rome of Hawthorne and Madame de Stael, was swept away. With this new state of things came a number of Americo-Italian marriages more or less successful; and anything like an American society, properly so-called, disappeared. To-day families of our compatriots passing the winter months in Rome are either tourists who live in hotels, and see sights, or go (as far as they can) into Italian society.

The Queen of Italy, who speaks excellent English, developed a penchant for Americans, and has attached several who married Italians to her person in different court capacities; indeed, the old "Black" society, who have remained true to the Pope, when they wish to ridicule the new "White" or royal circle, call it the "American court!" The feeling is bitter still between the "Blacks" and "Whites," and an American girl who marries into one of these circles must make up her mind to see nothing of friends or relatives in the opposition ranks. It is said that an amalgamation is being brought about, but it is slow work; a generation will have to die out before much real mingling of the two courts will take place. As both these circles are poor, very little entertainment goes on. One sees a little life in the diplomatic world, and the King and Queen give a ball or two during the winter, but since the repeated defeats of the Italian arms in Africa, and the heavy financial difficulties (things these sovereigns take very seriously to heart), there has not been much "go" in the court entertainments.

The young set hope great things of the new Princess of Naples, the bride of the heir-apparent, a lady who is credited with being full of fun and life; it is fondly imagined that she will set the ball rolling again. By the bye, her first lady-in-waiting, the young Duchess del Monte of Naples, was an American girl, and a very pretty one, too. She enjoyed for some time the enviable distinction of being the youngest and handsomest duchess in Europe, until Miss Vanderbilt married Marlborough and took the record from her. The Prince and Princess of Naples live at their Neapolitan capital, and will not do much to help things in Rome. Besides which he is very delicate and passes for not being any too fond of the world.

What makes things worse is that the great nobles are mostly "land poor," and even the richer ones burned their fingers in the craze for speculation that turned all Rome upside down in the years following 1870 and Italian unity, when they naively imagined their new capital was to become again after seventeen centuries the metropolis of the world. Whole quarters of new houses were run up for a population that failed to appear; these houses now stand empty and are fast going to ruin. So that little in the way of entertaining is to be expected from the bankrupts. They are a genial race, these Italian nobles, and welcome rich strangers and marry them with much enthusiasm—just a shade too much, perhaps—the girl counting for so little and her dot for so much in the matrimonial scale. It is only necessary to keep open house to have the pick of the younger ones as your guests. They will come to entertainments at American houses and bring all their relations, and dance, and dine, and flirt with great good humor and persistency; but if there is not a good solid fortune in the background, in the best of securities, the prettiest American smiles never tempt them beyond flirtation; the season over, they disappear up into their mountain villas to wait for a new importation from the States.

In Rome, as well as in the other Italian cities, there are, of course, still to be found Americans in some numbers (where on the Continent will you not find them?), living quietly for study or economy. But they are not numerous or united enough to form a society; and are apt to be involved in bitter strife among themselves.

Why, you ask, should Americans quarrel among themselves?

Some years ago I was passing the summer months on the Rhine at a tiny German watering-place, principally frequented by English, who were all living together in great peace and harmony, until one fatal day, when an Earl appeared. He was a poor Irish Earl, very simple and unoffending, but he brought war into that town, heart-burnings, envy, and backbiting. The English colony at once divided itself into two camps, those who knew the Earl and those who did not. And peace fled from our little society. You will find in every foreign capital among the resident Americans, just such a state of affairs as convulsed that German spa. The native "swells" have come to be the apple of discord that divides our good people among themselves. Those who have been successful in knowing the foreigners avoid their compatriots and live with their new friends, while the other group who, from laziness, disinclination, or principle (?) have remained true to their American circle, cannot resist calling the others snobs, and laughing (a bit enviously, perhaps) at their upward struggles.

It is the same in Florence. The little there was left of an American society went to pieces on that rock. Our parents forty years ago seem to me to have been much more self-respecting and sensible. They knew perfectly well that there was nothing in common between themselves and the Italian nobility, and that those good people were not going to put themselves out to make the acquaintance of a lot of strangers, mostly of another religion, unless it was to be materially to their advantage. So they left them quietly alone. I do not pretend to judge any one's motives, but confess I cannot help regarding with suspicion a foreigner who leaves his own circle to mingle with strangers. It resembles too closely the amiabilities of the wolf for the lamb, or the sudden politeness of a school-boy to a little girl who has received a box of candies.



No. 37—The Newport of the Past

Few of the "carriage ladies and gentlemen" who disport themselves in Newport during the summer months, yachting and dancing through the short season, then flitting away to fresh fields and pastures new, realize that their daintily shod feet have been treading historic ground, or care to cast a thought back to the past. Oddly enough, to the majority of people the past is a volume rarely opened. Not that it bores them to read it, but because they, like children, want some one to turn over its yellow leaves and point out the pictures to them. Few of the human motes that dance in the rays of the afternoon sun as they slant across the little Park, think of the fable which asserts that a sea-worn band of adventurous men, centuries before the Cabots or the Genoese discoverer thought of crossing the Atlantic, had pushed bravely out over untried seas and landed on this rocky coast. Yet one apparent evidence of their stay tempts our thoughts back to the times when it is said to have been built as a bower for a king's daughter. Longfellow, in the swinging verse of his "Skeleton in Armor," breathing of the sea and the Norseman's fatal love, has thrown such a glamour of poetry around the tower, that one would fain believe all he relates. The hardy Norsemen, if they ever came here, succumbed in their struggle with the native tribes, or, discouraged by death and hardships, sailed away, leaving the clouds of oblivion to close again darkly around this continent, and the fog of discussion to circle around the "Old Mill."

The little settlement of another race, speaking another tongue, that centuries later sprang up in the shadow of the tower, quickly grew into a busy and prosperous city, which, like New York, its rival, was captured and held by the English. To walk now through some of its quaint, narrow streets is to step back into Revolutionary days. Hardly a house has changed since the time when the red coats of the British officers brightened the prim perspectives, and turned loyal young heads as they passed.

At the corner of Spring and Pelham Streets, still stands the residence of General Prescott, who was carried away prisoner by his opponents, they having rowed down in whale-boats from Providence for the attack. Rochambeau, our French ally, lodged lower down in Mary Street. In the tower of Trinity, one can read the epitaph of the unfortunate Chevalier de Ternay, commander of the sea forces, whose body lies near by. Many years later his relative, the Duc de Noailles, when Minister to this country, had this simple tablet repaired and made a visit to the spot.

A long period of prosperity followed the Revolution, during which Newport grew and flourished. Our pious and God-fearing "forbears," having secured personal and religious liberty, proceeded to inaugurate a most successful and remunerative trade in rum and slaves. It was a triangular transaction and yielded a three-fold profit. The simple population of that day, numbering less than ten thousand souls, possessed twenty distilleries; finding it a physical impossibility to drink all the rum, they conceived the happy thought of sending the surplus across to the coast of Africa, where it appears to have been much appreciated by the native chiefs, who eagerly exchanged the pick of their loyal subjects for that liquid. These poor brutes were taken to the West Indies and exchanged for sugar, laden with which, the vessels returned to Newport.

Having introduced the dusky chieftains to the charms of delirium tremens and their subjects to life-long slavery, one can almost see these pious deacons proceeding to church to offer up thanks for the return of their successful vessels. Alas! even "the best laid schemes of mice and men" come to an end. The War of 1812, the opening of the Erie Canal and sundry railways struck a blow at Newport commerce, from which it never recovered. The city sank into oblivion, and for over thirty years not a house was built there.

It was not until near 1840 that the Middletons and Izzards and other wealthy and aristocratic Southern families were tempted to Newport by the climate and the facilities it offered for bathing, shooting and boating. A boarding-house or two sufficed for the modest wants of the new-comers, first among which stood the Aquidneck, presided over by kind Mrs. Murray. It was not until some years later, when New York and Boston families began to appreciate the place, that the first hotels were built,—the Atlantic on the square facing the old mill, the Bellevue and Fillmore on Catherine Street, and finally the original Ocean House, destroyed by fire in 1845 and rebuilt as we see it to-day. The croakers of the epoch considered it much too far out of town to be successful, for at its door the open fields began, a gate there separating the town from the country across which a straggling, half-made road, closed by innumerable gates, led along the cliffs and out across what is now the Ocean Drive. The principal roads at that time led inland; any one wishing to drive seaward had to descend every two or three minutes to open a gate. The youth of the day discovered a source of income in opening and closing these for pennies.

Fashion had decreed that the correct hour for dancing was 11 A.M., and matinees dansantes were regularly given at the hotels, our grandmothers appearing in decollete muslin frocks adorned with broad sashes, and disporting themselves gayly until the dinner hour. Low-neck dresses were the rule, not only for these informal entertainments, but as every-day wear for young girls,—an old lady only the other day telling me she had never worn a "high-body" until after her marriage. Two o'clock found all the beauties and beaux dining. How incredulously they would have laughed if any one had prophesied that their grandchildren would prefer eight forty-five as a dinner hour!

The opening of Bellevue Avenue marked another epoch in the history of Newport. About that time Governor Lawrence bought the whole of Ochre Point farm for fourteen thousand dollars, and Mr. de Rham built on the newly opened road the first "cottage," which stands to-day modestly back from the avenue opposite Perry Street. If houses have souls, as Hawthorne averred, and can remember and compare, what curious thoughts must pass through the oaken brain of this simple construction as it sees its marble neighbors rearing their vast facades among trees. The trees, too, are an innovation, for when the de Rham cottage was built and Mrs. Cleveland opened her new house at the extreme end of Rough Point (the second summer residence in the place) it is doubtful if a single tree broke the rocky monotony of the landscape from the Ocean House to Bateman's Point.

Governor Lawrence, having sold one acre of his Ochre Point farm to Mr. Pendleton for the price he himself had paid for the whole, proceeded to build a stone wall between the two properties down to the water's edge. The population of Newport had been accustomed to take their Sunday airings and moonlight rambles along "the cliffs," and viewed this obstruction of their favorite walk with dismay. So strong was their feeling that when the wall was completed the young men of the town repaired there in the night and tore it down. It was rebuilt, the mortar being mixed with broken glass. This infuriated the people to such an extent that the whole populace, in broad daylight, accompanied by the summer visitors, destroyed the wall and threw the materials into the sea. Lawrence, bent on maintaining what he considered his rights, called the law to his aid. It was then discovered that an immemorial riverain right gave the fishermen and the public generally, access to the shore for fishing, and also to collect seaweed,—a right of way that no one could obstruct.

This was the beginning of the long struggle between the cliff-dwellers and the townspeople; each new property-owner, disgusted at the idea that all the world can stroll at will across his well-kept lawns, has in turn tried his hand at suppressing the now famous "walk." Not only do the public claim the liberty to walk there, but also the right to cross any property to get to the shore. At this moment the city fathers and the committee of the new buildings at Bailey's Beach are wrangling as gayly as in Governor Lawrence's day over a bit of wall lately constructed across the end of Bellevue Avenue. A new expedient has been hit upon by some of the would-be exclusive owners of the cliffs; they have lowered the "walk" out of sight, thus insuring their own privacy and in no way interfering with the rights of the public.

Among the gentlemen who settled in Newport about Governor Lawrence's time was Lord Baltimore (Mr. Calvert, he preferred to call himself), who remained there until his death. He was shy of referring to his English peerage, but would willingly talk of his descent through his mother from Peter Paul Rubens, from whom had come down to him a chateau in Holland and several splendid paintings. The latter hung in the parlor of the modest little dwelling, where I was taken to see them and their owner many years ago. My introducer on this occasion was herself a lady of no ordinary birth, being the daughter of Stuart, our greatest portrait painter. I have passed many quiet hours in the quaint studio (the same her father had used), hearing her prattle—as she loved to do if she found a sympathetic listener—of her father, of Washington and his pompous ways, and the many celebrities who had in turn posed before Stuart's easel. She had been her father's companion and aid, present at the sittings, preparing his brushes and colors, and painting in backgrounds and accessories; and would willingly show his palette and explain his methods and theories of color, his predilection for scrumbling shadows thinly in black and then painting boldly in with body color. Her lessons had not profited much to the gentle, kindly old lady, for the productions of her own brush were far from resembling her great parent's work. She, however, painted cheerfully on to life's close, surrounded by her many friends, foremost among whom was Charlotte Cushman, who also passed the last years of her life in Newport. Miss Stuart was over eighty when I last saw her, still full of spirit and vigor, beginning the portrait of a famous beauty of that day, since the wife and mother of dukes.

Miss Stuart's death seems to close one of the chapters in the history of this city, and to break the last connecting link with its past. The world moves so quickly that the simple days and modest amusements of our fathers and grandfathers have already receded into misty remoteness. We look at their portraits and wonder vaguely at their graceless costumes. We know they trod these same streets, and laughed and flirted and married as we are doing to-day, but they seem to us strangely far away, like inhabitants of another sphere!

It is humiliating to think how soon we, too, shall have become the ancestors of a new and careless generation; fresh faces will replace our faded ones, young voices will laugh as they look at our portraits hanging in dark corners, wondering who we were, and (criticising the apparel we think so artistic and appropriate) how we could ever have made such guys of ourselves.



No. 38—A Conquest of Europe

The most important event in modern history is the discovery of Europe by the Americans. Before it, the peoples of the Old World lived happy and contented in their own countries, practising the patriarchal virtues handed down to them from generations of forebears, ignoring alike the vices and benefits of modern civilization, as understood on this side of the Atlantic. The simple-minded Europeans remained at home, satisfied with the rank in life where they had been born, and innocent of the ways of the new world.

These peoples were, on the whole, not so much to be pitied, for they had many pleasing crafts and arts unknown to the invaders, which had enabled them to decorate their capitals with taste in a rude way; nothing really great like the lofty buildings and elevated railway structures, executed in American cities, but interesting as showing what an ingenious race, deprived of the secrets of modern science, could accomplish.

The more aesthetic of the newcomers even affected to admire the antiquated places of worship and residences they visited abroad, pointing out to their compatriots that in many cases marble, bronze and other old- fashioned materials had been so cleverly treated as to look almost like the superior cast-iron employed at home, and that some of the old paintings, preserved with veneration in the museums, had nearly the brilliancy of modern chromos. As their authors had, however, neglected to use a process lending itself to rapid reproduction, they were of no practical value. In other ways, the continental races, when discovered, were sadly behind the times. In business, they ignored the use of "corners," that backbone of American trade, and their ideas of advertising were but little in advance of those known among the ancient Greeks.

The discovery of Europe by the Americans was made about 1850, at which date the first bands of adventurers crossed the seas in search of amusement. The reports these pioneers brought back of the naivete, politeness, and gullibility of the natives, and the cheapness of existence in their cities, caused a general exodus from the western to the eastern hemisphere. Most of the Americans who had used up their credit at home and those whose incomes were insufficient for their wants, immediately migrated to these happy hunting grounds, where life was inexpensive and credit unlimited.

The first arrivals enjoyed for some twenty years unique opportunities. They were able to live in splendor for a pittance that would barely have kept them in necessaries on their own side of the Atlantic, and to pick up valuable specimens of native handiwork for nominal sums. In those happy days, to belong to the invading race was a sufficient passport to the good graces of the Europeans, who asked no other guarantees before trading with the newcomers, but flocked around them, offering their services and their primitive manufactures, convinced that Americans were all wealthy.

Alas! History ever repeats itself. As Mexicans and Peruvians, after receiving their conquerors with confidence and enthusiasm, came to rue the day they had opened their arms to strangers, so the European peoples, before a quarter of a century was over, realized that the hordes from across the sea who were over-running their lands, raising prices, crowding the native students out of the schools, and finally attempting to force an entrance into society, had little to recommend them or justify their presence except money. Even in this some of the intruders were unsatisfactory. Those who had been received into the "bosom" of hotels often forgot to settle before departing. The continental women who had provided the wives of discoverers with the raiment of the country (a luxury greatly affected by those ladies) found, to their disgust, that their new customers were often unable or unwilling to offer any remuneration.

In consequence of these and many other disillusions, Americans began to be called the "Destroyers," especially when it became known that nothing was too heavy or too bulky to be carried away by the invaders, who tore the insides from the native houses, the paintings from the walls, the statues from the temples, and transported this booty across the seas, much in the same way as the Romans had plundered Greece. Elaborate furniture seemed especially to attract the new arrivals, who acquired vast quantities of it.

Here, however, the wily natives (who were beginning to appreciate their own belongings) had revenge. Immense quantities of worthless imitations were secretly manufactured and sold to the travellers at fabulous prices. The same artifice was used with paintings, said to be by great masters, and with imitations of old stuffs and bric-a-brac, which the ignorant and arrogant invaders pretended to appreciate and collect.

Previous to our arrival there had been an invasion of the Continent by the English about the year 1812. One of their historians, called Thackeray, gives an amusing account of this in the opening chapters of his "Shabby Genteel Story." That event, however, was unimportant in comparison with the great American movement, although both were characterized by the same total disregard of the feelings and prejudices of indigenous populations. The English then walked about the continental churches during divine service, gazing at the pictures and consulting their guide-books as unconcernedly as our compatriots do to-day. They also crowded into theatres and concert halls, and afterwards wrote to the newspapers complaining of the bad atmosphere of those primitive establishments and of the long entr'actes.

As long as the invaders confined themselves to such trifles, the patient foreigners submitted to their overbearing and uncouth ways because of the supposed benefit to trade. The natives even went so far as to build hotels for the accommodation and delight of the invaders, abandoning whole quarters to their guests.

There was, however, a point at which complacency stopped. The older civilizations had formed among themselves restricted and exclusive societies, to which access was almost impossible to strangers. These sanctuaries tempted the immigrants, who offered their fairest virgins and much treasure for the privilege of admission. The indigenous aristocrats, who were mostly poor, yielded to these offers and a few Americans succeeded in forcing an entrance. But the old nobility soon became frightened at the number and vulgarity of the invaders, and withdrew severely into their shells, refusing to accept any further bribes either in the form of females or finance.

From this moment dates the humiliation of the discoverers. All their booty and plunder seemed worthless in comparison with the Elysian delights they imagined were concealed behind the closed doors of those holy places, visions of which tortured the women from the western hemisphere and prevented their taking any pleasure in other victories. To be received into those inner circles became their chief ambition. With this end in view they dressed themselves in expensive costumes, took the trouble to learn the "lingo" spoken in the country, went to the extremity of copying the ways of the native women by painting their faces, and in one or two cases imitated the laxity of their morals.

In spite of these concessions, our women were not received with enthusiasm. On the contrary, the very name of an American became a byword and an abomination in every continental city. This prejudice against us abroad is hardly to be wondered at on reflecting what we have done to acquire it. The agents chosen by our government to treat diplomatically with the conquered nations, owe their selection to political motives rather than to their tact or fitness. In the large majority of cases men are sent over who know little either of the habits or languages prevailing in Europe.

The worst elements always follow in the wake of discovery. Our settlements abroad gradually became the abode of the compromised, the divorced, the socially and financially bankrupt.

Within the last decade we have found a way to revenge the slights put upon us, especially those offered to Americans in the capital of Gaul. Having for the moment no playwrights of our own, the men who concoct dramas, comedies, and burlesques for our stage find, instead of wearying themselves in trying to produce original matter, that it is much simpler to adapt from French writers. This has been carried to such a length that entire French plays are now produced in New York signed by American names.

The great French playwrights can protect themselves by taking out American copyright, but if one of them omits this formality, the "conquerors" immediately seize upon his work and translate it, omitting intentionally all mention of the real author on their programmes. This season a play was produced of which the first act was taken from Guy de Maupassant, the second and third "adapted" from Sardou, with episodes introduced from other authors to brighten the mixture. The piece thus patched together is signed by a well-known Anglo-Saxon name, and accepted by our moral public, although the original of the first act was stopped by the Parisian police as too immoral for that gay capital.

Of what use would it be to "discover" a new continent unless the explorers were to reap some such benefits? Let us take every advantage that our proud position gives us, plundering the foreign authors, making penal settlements of their capitals, and ignoring their foolish customs and prejudices when we travel among them! In this way shall we effectually impress on the inferior races across the Atlantic the greatness of the American nation.



No. 39—A Race of Slaves

It is all very well for us to have invaded Europe, and awakened that somnolent continent to the lights and delights of American ways; to have beautified the cities of the old world with graceful trolleys and illuminated the catacombs at Rome with electricity. Every true American must thrill with satisfaction at these achievements, and the knowledge that he belongs to a dominating race, before which the waning civilization of Europe must fade away and disappear.

To have discovered Europe and to rule as conquerors abroad is well, but it is not enough, if we are led in chains at home. It is recorded of a certain ambitious captain whose "Commentaries" made our school-days a burden, that "he preferred to be the first in a village rather than second at Rome." Oddly enough, we are contented to be slaves in our villages while we are conquerors in Rome. Can it be that the struggles of our ancestors for freedom were fought in vain? Did they throw off the yoke of kings, cross the Atlantic, found a new form of government on a new continent, break with traditions, and sign a declaration of independence, only that we should succumb, a century later, yielding the fruits of their hard-fought battles with craven supineness into the hands of corporations and municipalities; humbly bowing necks that refuse to bend before anointed sovereigns, to the will of steamboat subordinates, the insolence of be-diamonded hotel-clerks, and the captious conductor?

Last week my train from Washington arrived in Jersey City on time. We scurried (like good Americans) to the ferry-boat, hot and tired and anxious to get to our destination; a hope deferred, however, for our boat was kept waiting forty long minutes, because, forsooth, another train from somewhere in the South was behind time. Expostulations were in vain. Being only the paying public, we had no rights that those autocrats, the officials, were bound to respect. The argument that if they knew the southern train to be so much behind, the ferry-boat would have plenty of time to take us across and return, was of no avail, so, like a cargo of "moo-cows" (as the children say), we submitted meekly. In order to make the time pass more pleasantly for the two hundred people gathered on the boat, a dusky potentate judged the moment appropriate to scrub the cabin floors. So, aided by a couple of subordinates, he proceeded to deluge the entire place in floods of water, obliging us to sit with our feet tucked up under us, splashing the ladies' skirts and our wraps and belongings.

Such treatment of the public would have raised a riot anywhere but in this land of freedom. Do you suppose any one murmured? Not at all. The well-trained public had the air of being in church. My neighbors appeared astonished at my impatience, and informed me that they were often detained in that way, as the company was short of boats, but they hoped to have a new one in a year or two. This detail did not prevent that corporation advertising our train to arrive in New York at three- thirteen, instead of which we landed at four o'clock. If a similar breach of contract had happened in England, a dozen letters would have appeared in the "Times," and the grievance been well aired.

Another infliction to which all who travel in America are subjected is the brushing atrocity. Twenty minutes before a train arrives at its destination, the despot who has taken no notice of any one up to this moment, except to snub them, becomes suspiciously attentive and insists on brushing everybody. The dirt one traveller has been accumulating is sent in clouds into the faces of his neighbors. When he is polished off and has paid his "quarter" of tribute, the next man gets up, and the dirt is then brushed back on to number one, with number two's collection added.

Labiche begins one of his plays with two servants at work in a salon. "Dusting," says one of them, "is the art of sending the dirt from the chair on the right over to the sofa on the left." I always think of that remark when I see the process performed in a parlor car, for when it is over we are all exactly where we began. If a man should shampoo his hair, or have his boots cleaned in a salon, he would be ejected as a boor; yet the idea apparently never enters the heads of those who soil and choke their fellow-passengers that the brushing might be done in the vestibule.

On the subject of fresh air and heat we are also in the hands of officials, dozens of passengers being made to suffer for the caprices of one of their number, or the taste of some captious invalid. In other lands the rights of minorities are often ignored. With us it is the contrary. One sniffling school-girl who prefers a temperature of 80 degrees can force a car full of people to swelter in an atmosphere that is death to them, because she refuses either to put on her wraps or to have a window opened.

Street railways are torture-chambers where we slaves are made to suffer in another way. You must begin to reel and plunge towards the door at least two blocks before your destination, so as to leap to the ground when the car slows up; otherwise the conductor will be offended with you, and carry you several squares too far, or with a jocose "Step lively," will grasp your elbow and shoot you out. Any one who should sit quietly in his place until the vehicle had come to a full stop, would be regarded by the slave-driver and his cargo as a poseur who was assuming airs.

The idea that cars and boats exist for the convenience of the public was exploded long ago. We are made, dozens of times a day, to feel that this is no longer the case. It is, on the contrary, brought vividly home to us that such conveyances are money making machines in the possession of powerful corporations (to whom we, in our debasement, have handed over the freedom of our streets and rivers), and are run in the interest and at the discretion of their owners.

It is not only before the great and the powerful that we bow in submission. The shop-girl is another tyrant who has planted her foot firmly on the neck of the nation. She respects neither sex nor age. Ensconced behind the bulwark of her counter, she scorns to notice humble aspirants until they have performed a preliminary penance; a time she fills up in cheerful conversation addressed to other young tyrants, only deciding to notice customers when she sees their last grain of patience is exhausted. She is often of a merry mood, and if anything about your appearance or manner strikes her critical sense as amusing, will laugh gayly with her companions at your expense.

A French gentleman who speaks our language correctly but with some accent, told me that he found it impossible to get served in our stores, the shop-girls bursting with laughter before he could make his wants known.

Not long ago I was at the Compagnie Lyonnaise in Paris with a stout American lady, who insisted on tipping her chair forward on its front legs as she selected some laces. Suddenly the chair flew from under her, and she sat violently on the polished floor in an attitude so supremely comic that the rest of her party were inwardly convulsed. Not a muscle moved in the faces of the well-trained clerks. The proprietor assisted her to rise as gravely as if he were bowing us to our carriage.

In restaurants American citizens are treated even worse than in the shops. You will see cowed customers who are anxious to get away to their business or pleasure sitting mutely patient, until a waiter happens to remember their orders. I do not know a single establishment in this city where the waiters take any notice of their customers' arrival, or where the proprietor comes, toward the end of the meal, to inquire if the dishes have been cooked to their taste. The interest so general on the Continent or in England is replaced here by the same air of being disturbed from more important occupations, that characterizes the shop- girl and elevator boy.

Numbers of our people live apparently in awe of their servants and the opinion of the tradespeople. One middle-aged lady whom I occasionally take to the theatre, insists when we arrive at her door on my accompanying her to the elevator, in order that the youth who presides therein may see that she has an escort, the opinion of this subordinate apparently being of supreme importance to her. One of our "gilded youths" recently told me of a thrilling adventure in which he had figured. At the moment he was passing under an awning on his way to a reception, a gust of wind sent his hat gambolling down the block. "Think what a situation," he exclaimed. "There stood a group of my friends' footmen watching me. But I was equal to the situation and entered the house as if nothing had happened!" Sir Walter Raleigh sacrificed a cloak to please a queen. This youth abandoned a new hat, fearing the laughter of a half-dozen servants.

One of the reasons why we have become so weak in the presence of our paid masters is that nowhere is the individual allowed to protest. The other night a friend who was with me at a theatre considered the acting inferior, and expressed his opinion by hissing. He was promptly ejected by a policeman. The man next me was, on the contrary, so pleased with the piece that he encored every song. I had paid to see the piece once, and rebelled at being obliged to see it twice to suit my neighbor. On referring the matter to the box-office, the caliph in charge informed me that the slaves he allowed to enter his establishment (like those who in other days formed the court of Louis XIV.) were permitted to praise, but were suppressed if they murmured dissent. In his Memoires, Dumas, pere, tells of a "first night" when three thousand people applauded a play of his and one spectator hissed. "He was the only one I respected," said Dumas, "for the piece was bad, and that criticism spurred me on to improve it."

How can we hope for any improvement in the standard of our entertainments, the manners of our servants or the ways of corporations when no one complains? We are too much in a hurry to follow up a grievance and have it righted. "It doesn't pay," "I haven't got the time," are phrases with which all such subjects are dismissed. We will sit in over-heated cars, eat vilely cooked food, put up with insolence from subordinates, because it is too much trouble to assert our rights. Is the spirit that prompted the first shots on Lexington Common becoming extinct? Have the floods of emigration so diluted our Anglo-Saxon blood that we no longer care to fight for liberty? Will no patriot arise and lead a revolt against our tyrants?

I am prepared to follow such a leader, and have already marked my prey. First, I will slay a certain miscreant who sits at the receipt of customs in the box-office of an up-town theatre. For years I have tried to propitiate that satrap with modest politeness and feeble little jokes. He has never been softened by either, but continues to "chuck" the worst places out to me (no matter how early I arrive, the best have always been given to the speculators), and to frown down my attempts at self-assertion.

When I have seen this enemy at my feet, I shall start down town (stopping on the way to brain the teller at my bank, who is perennially paring his nails, and refuses to see me until that operation is performed), to the office of a night-boat line, where the clerk has so often forced me, with hundreds of other weary victims, to stand in line like convicts, while he chats with a "lady friend," his back turned to us and his leg comfortably thrown over the arm of his chair. Then I will take my blood-stained way—but, no! It is better not to put my victims on their guard, but to abide my time in silence! Courage, fellow-slaves, our day will come!



Chapter 40—Introspection {276}

The close of a year must bring even to the careless and the least inclined toward self-inspection, an hour of thoughtfulness, a desire to glance back across the past, and set one's mental house in order, before starting out on another stage of the journey for that none too distant bourne toward which we all are moving.

Our minds are like solitary dwellers in a vast residence, whom habit has accustomed to live in a few only of the countless chambers around them. We have collected from other parts of our lives mental furniture and bric- a-brac that time and association have endeared to us, have installed these meagre belongings convenient to our hand, and contrived an entrance giving facile access to our living-rooms, avoiding the effort of a long detour through the echoing corridors and disused salons behind. No acquaintances, and but few friends, penetrate into the private chambers of our thoughts. We set aside a common room for the reception of visitors, making it as cheerful as circumstances will allow and take care that the conversation therein rarely turns on any subject more personal than the view from the windows or the prophecies of the barometer.