University of Virginia Library

3. THE LORGNETTE.

FEB. 7. NEW-YORK. NO. 3.

You will be amused to learn, my dear Fritz,
that a city paper has set you down as a respectable
maiden aunt of a certain poor literary jobber, to
whom has been ascribed the authorship of these
papers. I do not doubt but that you would become
the petticoats as well as any Catholic Sister of the
“People I have met;” still I feel bound to enter a
caveat against such wanton and gratuitous metamorphose
of your dignity and sex.

As for the alleged authorship,—notwithstanding
the allegation is supported by “undoubted
signs,”—I have only to say that the editors must

set their wits at work anew. It is certainly not a
little singular, that after having plainly told the
public, that my name was wholly unknown, gentlemen
should persist in ascribing the work to
persons of acknowledged experience. Will not the
dear Critics believe, that a plain and simple observer
may use a pen with some little adroitness, although
he has not dipped into the muddy Bethesda of
city literature? May not a man speak out honestly
his sentiments, and detail the pleasant passages of
his town-life, without being set down as one of the
old brood of inordinate and pretentious scribblers?
Is there anything in the nature of the thing, that
forbids the propriety, or the truth of my claim?
Will not the kind gentlemen—the bell-wethers of
the sheep-flock—who have in their keeping the
literary interests of the town, suffer a quiet fellow
to have a word for himself, but they must forthwith
credit his speculations to some of their own
kith and kin?

As for the honor they do me, deeply sensible as I
am of its importance, I must yet entreat their forbearance
in the bestowal; it hurts my modesty, to
say nothing of my character.

It seems that not a few curious smelfungi, misled,
perhaps, by the taking figure of the cover, have
anticipated in the Lorgnette a sort of duodecimo

Judy, with its grinning conceits; they are as
much mistaken as if they were to look for classic
acting at the Broadway Theatre, or for a conscience
among the City Fathers. Those earnest for such
funny delicacies, I would commend to the Chatham
Theatre, an old file of Yankee Doodle, and a pewter
mug of ale; and with these helps, I feel quite sure
that they may turn them out, as plentifully, and of
as good quality, as any at the bar of the Jefferson
Lunch, or among the city items of the Commercial.

TOWN CELEBRITIES.

I should give you a poor idea, Fritz, of the
winter life in town, if I did not keep you advised
from week to week of the celebrities of the time;
yet they come up so fast, that it will be very hard
to tell how they gain such character, and harder
still, to tell how they lose it. But we are a quick-working
people, and do these things at very short
order; while, you know, in the old states of
Europe, it takes a long time for either man,
woman, or child, to become any way famous. There
the most extraordinary men may move about without
a procession of gapers; and a Lolah Montes may

take her dish of coffee at a public table, without so
much as a single man being choked with his roll
at the sight.

This is not the way we do things in our town.
Nothing out of the common course can happen but
there arises a tremendous buzz, which carries knowledge
of it to all the salons of the town, and to
every loge of the Opera. Not a man above the
capacity of country Judge, or skipper of a coasting
schooner, can arrive upon the island, but he is announced
in the gossiping papers under the head of
personal movements; and I do not believe that a
man could kiss his wife in the street without its
forming a nucleus for a “mysterious circumstance”
in an evening journal, or that a lady could rupture
her lacings, without its being chronicled in the
Express, under head of “Casualties.”

The ingenious de Tocqueville would have found
a reason for this itch of multiplying the marvelous,
in the character of our institutions, and in the
absence, throughout our social system, of all established
and time-honored celebrities. We must have
something near us to wonder at and admire, and
if the State does not give us the means, why our
own fancies will. Hence it is that mountebanks
of all classes and characteristics, are passing before
us, and growing in a breath into celebrities.

Tophanes, who is au courant of such matters,
has frequently diverted me, by pointing out, upon
the street, the lions of the day. There, for instance,—he
will tell me,—goes a woman who is
well known for having the prettiest ankles in the
town, and who is remarkable for a partiality to
damp pavements. Another is known for her
artistic arrangement of dress, and has even been
honored, under a feigned name, with a complimentary
paragraph, under head of “things talked
of” in the Home Journal. A third has given a
magnificent ball, with which the town talk, from
that of the prim nieces in the attic, to that of a distinguished
French reviewer, has been busy for a
week. Mention in the last-named quarter has, of
course, established reputation beyond all attempt
at cavil.

A fourth, who is a prim gentleman in very shaggy
coat, is pointed out to you as the hero of every
salon; and if he but add to this claim a certain
celebrity in the Rackett court, or the authorship of
a few sonnets, he will be gazed at admiringly by
all the young ladies upon town. A fifth, is a millionaire,
or son of a millionaire, who has a hundred
sly fingers and beaming eyes directed toward him,
whenever he shows himself upon the walk. A
sixth, will be named and noted as the hero of some

little piquant intrigue, which the dear ladies name
always with a Christian shudder, and such fond
sigh of regret as might win a Joseph. Another, is
some blooming author, or artist, who, by dint of
newspaper mention, has grown Raphaelesque in
celebrity, and who wears his honors like a mountain.
I do not mean to say, Fritz, that these are
characters whose fame has reached you, for their
celebrity, unfortunately, blossoms and fades within
the limits of the city. If they were to migrate,
they might become lions in small country towns
for a season; but it is to be feared, that without the
ambrosia of town Deism, they would soon sink to
the level of ordinary men.

Indeed, so determined is the disposition to build
up easy celebrities, that I have had my fears, lest
some of the paper limners, who are the most prying,
inquisitive fellows you can imagine—should get
wind of my box at the Opera, since I am a stranger,
and very indefatigable with my glass—and serve
me up in a paragraph under some such dainty
head as “Riff Raff,” or “Floatings By.” Indeed,
what with my rustic air, huge lorgnette, and bald
head, I think I should cut rather a pretty figure
in a statuette. And if Heaven were to spread before
me the snare of a town marriage, I should
expect to find all my better feelings harrowed up

by some such announcement as this:—“We understand
that a buxom old country gentleman, Mr.
John Timon, led yesterday to the altar the young
and blooming Miss Euphemia Trymen. The ceremony
was performed in Grace Church, and the
powerful and sonorous voice of the distinguished
Doctor added powerfully to the interest of the stirring
occasion. Several carriages were in attendance,
among which we noticed a few of the tasteful
equipages of our leaders of fashion.”

Foreigners in general may, so far as I have observed,
be reckoned among the town celebrities.
A German, with his guttural sounds, and with his
taste in music, which, by dint of foreign terms, can
be very well assumed, is almost certain of being
hunted down, and bagged by all the good-natured
celebrity mongers. And if he can scrape a fiddle
daintily, or talk, with his eyes rolling to heaven,
about Goethe, or cultivate a Faust intensity of look,
he will be in demand all over the town by German
loving young ladies,—and all this, notwithstanding
he may drink all the small beer in the world,
or smoke the filthiest of Meerschaums. It is of
but little account what name or position he may
have held in the Fatherland: we democratize with
a vengeance, where a distingué, sandy whisker is
in the case; and our autocrats can open their doors

to the veriest valet, if his lingual acquirements
and naïve foreign air will but make him a taking
card in the salon.

As for the Frenchman, though now between the
valorous Poussin and the long-faced Bonaparte, a
little under the weather, yet a good polka education,
delicate perfumes well laid on, and a roundly-uttered
“superbe,” and “magnifique,” in a lady's
ear, will do for him vast execution. And as for a
genuine Cockney, in exceedingly sharp shirt collars,
straight-brimmed hat, and plaid tights, who mouths
his words, and says,—“I de-say,” and “it's very
odd,” and “nice person,” and who talks easily about
“Victy,” and the “Duke,”—he will bewitch half the
women of the town. And if he can manage to drop
a compliment, not too clumsily contrived, into the
ear of some respectable, established lady, who doats
upon herself, her suppers, and her equipage, he will
be heralded presently in the town gossip, as a “distinguished
son of Albion,” with supposed acquirements
enough to make him a ten days' wonder. Of
course, if a shrewd fellow, his acquaintance at
home will be all be-duked, and be-duchessed, and
he will prove a rare trump for such ladies as turn
up their noses at “money,” and who have a keen
scent for “blood.”

But all these have latterly been cast in the shade

by the Hungarian exiles; among which were the
valiant little Demoiselle Jagello, and Governor Ujhazy,
whose names the whole town has learned to
pronounce, by aid of the philological developments
of a morning paper. Now nothing in the world is
more proper than to welcome these poor fellows;
and nothing more generous than Stetson's kind
bounty in giving them a home. But they have
been fêted, and visited; and the stout little curmudgeon
of a Governor drugged with dinners, and
Mademoiselle tolled out to town balls; and important
committees have been busy making up for us
a set of celebrities as large as the Mexican conquerors.
They have been sent for to make a house
at the Opera, and have proved grand capital, not
only for Senator Seward, but for aspiring ladies
who give thin soirées. Would it not be well for
them to secure, as standard lions for the season, a
score or two of those who are now on their way
from Hamburg?

Now if the Governor, who is a stern old countryman,
with a long grizzled beard like a Hebrew,
would take honest advice, I would caution him
against celebrity mongers, and urge upon him a quiet
life, and a careful look-out for his estates at home;
which, if they pass from him in the lion's division
of the spoil, he had better renew somewhere in the

West, and bend that sturdy back of his to work upon
American soil, and that brave soul to the appreciation
and advancement of the American State.

As for Mademoiselle, who is a brisk, snug-built,
dark-eyed little maid, they have made all manner
of paragraphs about her shape, her tears, and
her war-dress—in short, they have married her to
town celebrity; and though it is a far better
match for her, than if she had married the best of
the celebrity mongers, yet it will make for her an
unquiet home, and will give her but flimsy altar-gods
for her hearth-stone.

Another poor victim they have tried to make of
a splendid violinist, ushered in by a blast of town
trumpets, and the taking announcement of a
weekly journal that he was a “handsome young fellow.”
The town ladies were naturally bewitched to
see the charming Remeyni, who, though scarce out of
his teens, had the sense to perceive the lure, and
as Tophanes informs me, has escaped the martyrdom.

But the Hungarian fever, thanks to the stupidity
of that lover of monarchs and the London Times—
Mr. Bowen, has become almost chronic; and we
hear of respectable young men and women, sane on
other matters, who have actually taken to study of
the Magyar dialect, and talk of some such redeeming

pilgrimages to the banks of the Danube, as
crazy Southey once plotted to the wilds of Missouri.
In all the bals costumés the Hungarian costume
is just now carrying the day, even against a
Buena Vista hussar coat, or the lace trimmings of
a Debardeur. Street mountebanks are wearing
Hungarian caps; the Hungarian balsam is in new
demand; and Miss Lawson (Tophanes is my authority),
who divides, with the Home Journal, the
honors of being Pythoness of modes, is about to offer
to the enchanted town a Jagello hat! The next
step will be a Weehazy polka, and a Weehazy beard,
which, if they be duly chronicled in the Express,
and countenanced by her Grace, Madame J—.
and deftly dished into an oily paragraph, by the
Journal that dishes such things so well, will become
the established order of the city.

As for native growth, now that the Mexican war
is fairly over (which, as I am told, crowded the town
with heroes), the ways of achieving a really available
celebrity are reducible to some one of these:—
by getting, or seeming to get, inordinately rich; by
giving a ball so splendid that it shall not lack notice
even in the staid columns of a Revue; by writing
a stupid book (if I said letters, you might condemn
me for an aspirant!); by newspaper mention
under head of “Personal Movements,” or the committal

of some extraordinary absurdity; by defaulting
to the tune of some really clever sum; by making
a dinner speech, or getting drunk at the balls;
by running away with an heiress, or arriving as
“bearer of dispatches;” and finally, by being candidate
for, or recipient of a public office.

There are many of them so important as to be
worthy of a separate paper; and I shall go on now
to note only the casual and accidental celebrities
which have fallen under notice.

An Opera ball, one of which has lately miscarried,
owing to an unfortunate clash of jealousies,
might be made, by a little dexterous management,
a thorough celebrity. I have the authority of my
neighbor, the tasteful gentleman, for saying that
the only one of the winter was quite recherché; and
he has kindly offered to interest himself with the
managers, for securing me a ticket to such others
as may be in store. He tells me that it is strictly
understood between Mr. Maretzek and the tasteful
managers, that no parvenus are to be admitted;
and as I am quite anxious to see the pure ton sifted
of all riff-raff, parvenu rubbish, I shall certainly
avail myself of his kindness. It is true I have
had my misgivings about his own title to the
floor; but it appears that he is intimate with
the chief of the orchestra, and has performed

some private service of a delicate nature, for a
gentleman prominent on the committee; moreover,
he wears a very respectable moustache, a
jaunty-setting blue coat with brass buttons, and
an air of easy indifference, so that he passes
without challenge.

Some of the “old families,” as he calls them, have
turned up their noses at these public balls; but he
hints that it is out of sheer jealousy, and that they
are fast being overtopped by the ton of the Opera-house.
And he went on to say, that the manners of
such were altogether rusty and stiff, not brilliant
enough for the times, and that they must soon sink
into oblivion. I am inclined to think that he is
more than half correct; and if the old Dutchmen
do not take warning—add a new cape to their coachmen's
coat, trick out their daughters in more dashing
cloaks, buy a seat at Grace Church, (though
Dutch Reform stock may rise a little with the cross
of the Fifth Avenue Meeting-House,) abuse Forti,
subscribe to de Trobriand's Revue, and the Lorgnette,
they will be very sure to lose caste.

There are not a few diminutive celebrities of the
balls—people who get a name for constant attendance,
or for a particular dance; and I remember
quite a young gentleman with a little down upon
his lip, carefully turned up at the ends, who was

pointed out by my friend Tophanes, as an extraordinary
prodigy in this last way. He seemed to have
a due sense of his lion state, albeit his mane was
not of very robust growth, and seemed as thoroughly
satisfied with his celebrity, as if it had been gained
by the invention of a steam-engine, or a patent
elastic boot shank.

I don't mean, dear Fritz, to affect the cynic, in
making invidious comparisons, and by throwing
ridicule on the favorites of the balls! Each phase of
life has its brilliancies, and each pursuit its celebrities;
and there is no reason in the world why
our heroes of the polka should not wear their honors
of the pump, as serenely, and gaily, as the first whip
at Astley's his success upon the box—as Celeste her
verdicts of applause at the Lyceum, or as our newfledged
writers their sprouting and hot-bed glories.

The lady celebrities of the ball-room are distinguishable
sometimes by gracefulness in the dance,
and sometimes by a most delectable familiarity.
Why, if our old flame Amy, of bal masqué memory,
were to cling to you in the waltz with such languishing
and tender air as belongs to some of
our salon dancers, you would find yourself doubting
if she were as honest as she seemed!

Only fancy to yourself, Fritz, a tall girl with
shoulders bare to the lower edge of decorum,—your

arm clasped round her waist well bound up,—her
hand lying hard upon your shoulder, and her head
sometimes reposing on it, so that her head-dress
tickles your chin as you whirl in the dance, and a
round eye full of a luxurious languor looking up at
you from the faint head! To tell you the truth, it
would do honor to the Chaumière.

My old lady-friend the dowager explained this to
me, however, as a pleasant eccentricity of the dancer;
and supported her statement by pointing out
to me presently the same individual, in the act of
borrowing a gentleman's handkerchief to wipe the
perspiration from her neck! The town is certainly
on the gain in these matters; the old prurient modesty
of our day is gone by; and we may expect to
see, in a winter or two, some of these eccentric characters
appearing in satin breeches. Indeed, I would
by no means vouch for the fact, that they have not
enjoyed particular divertisements of the sort, before
a select company of gentlemen, already.

I cannot help noticing in this connection, though
they hardly rank among the celebrities, the great
number of small fry, who swarm at the balls. The
age of school-boys seems to have utterly gone by;
and you will find little witlings in straight sharp collars
talking robustly of polking, and balls, at an age
when, judging from their chin and brain, they

should be busy with their Latin readers and Columbian
class-books. And if you fall to talking with a
hoydenish miss, or decayed spinster, about Rossi, or
the new tenor, (for these are safe topics) you will
find yourself supplanted by some little beardless
fellow, who scarce comes up to your shoulder, and
who yet insists with all the gravity of a man, upon
the next polk, with your belle!

It used to be the order, that men should have the
gain of a year or two upon the ladies; but the order
seems now reversed, and a boy in his teens is reckoned
a fit partner for a woman of a score. Whether
the ladies have degenerated, or the youngsters
gained four years upon them in wit, since our
day, I have not yet observed enough to determine
correctly.

Another sort of celebrity at the balls is the dinerout,
who is heavy with Port and Champagne, and
stupified with a new lift at the punch-bowl. He quite
shocks sensitive girls by the boldness of his dance,
and thinks it a pretty play to reel like a Bacchante
through the waltz. In this matter, New-York
fashionables decidedly take the lead of the rest of
the civilized world; in most quarters such unfortunate
diners-out would be politely shown the door;
but it is by no means certain that here, it does not
add to a gentleman's attractions.

Here and there you may meet with a traveled
lady who becomes a pretty subject for salon celebrity.
She wears an air of most captivating impudence,
and pronounces the names of a great many
foreign towns unexceptionably, even to the Gaelic
guttural in Munich. She wears gloves from Boivín's
in the Rue de la Paix, and hopes she shall never be
obliged to wear any others: she subscribes to the
Courrier des Etats-Unis, and criticises the American
translations of French authors. She drops her
cards about town, dating from the Rue Lavoisier,
or de Lille, and leaves a regret with the servant,
that she has no American cards about her. She
talks in a hurried, broken, epigrammatic way of
Paris shops and soirés,—assumes that air of easy
languor, which becomes the elegant faineant, weary
of admiration, and gives such interesting details of
city life abroad as dazzle her beardless devotees,
but which it is plain to see are picked up from
a gossiping French femme de chambre. It is wonderful
how much pretty talk of travel, and scandal
of Paris life, can be accumulated from the morning
chats with a little piquant grisette; and if any
ambitious conversationist is desirous of lighting up
her evenings with richer foreign tattle than can be
gathered from any “scissorings from foreign files,”
there could scarce be a happier method hit upon

than to import for private service, a middle-aged,
faded, Paris femme de chambre.

Our foreign celebrity criticises in ex cathedra
style the dresses of the town, and makes modest
young women, who are simply respectable, very
uneasy in their simplicity. If a friend questions
the propriety of certain extravagances of dress, she
meets it with an inimitable toss of the head, that
quite sets the matter at rest. Or if some prudent
old lady inveighs against a too lavish display of her
personal charms,—Pho! has she not seen the
dress of the Duchess of So and So, and shall she be
taught proprieties in our town?

A young gentleman of `parts,' and high respectability,
will be presented by some middle-aged
spinster as a gentleman recently returned from
abroad, and possibly a hint will be dropped about
superior acquirements, a German university, or a
finished education. At all which, the young gentleman
of `parts' adjusts his shirt collar, looks
down at his Paris boot, bows graciously, and thinks
“it is a fine day.” Or if last from England, he
coughs “ahem,” and says “aye,” in affirmation,
—clips his words very uncommonly short, and affects
a most extraordinary coolness, with which
the young ladies are delighted, and think “he is so
very gentlemanly.” He says that St. Paul's is

a fair sort of a church, and also Westminster Abbey,
in its way; and he thinks the Duke of Northumberland
has “rayther a clever 'ouse” at Charing
Cross, but he doesn't think his equipage is the
`thing.'

He intends “going over” again presently to hear
Jenny Lind, or to see Cerito. Of course he thinks
Truffi is very well in her way, but quite provincial—quite!
As for Paris, which he pronounces
inadvertently Paree, he was quite charmed with it
—quite; and he can give a very particular and
graphic description of the Hotel Meurice, and such
statistics about palaces and gardens, as he has
picked up from his valet de place, or Galignani's
Guide. Of course he became perfectly familiar
with French, and has a practical knowledge of
Italian and Spanish; though it seems to him a confounded
affectation to be using these unusual acquirements
in company; for his part, he could not
so far forget himself. He can tell some very rich
stories about brigands in Italy, which date about
the time of his visit.

For the matter of Art, he must confess with some
pain, that he has not been able to enter our small
collections since his return; but he hopes that after
a little further depletion of the foreign habit, he will
be sufficiently reduced to enjoy even the Art-Union.

Yet he would by no means sneer at our artists—he
would not be thought to do so; he thinks they need
encouragement, particularly that of men of taste
and travel.

He opens a conversation with a new acquaintance,
by observing, that upon the whole manners
are improving in this country; he sees marks of it,
he thinks, all about him,—particularly in the little
naked statuettes which he has met with in private
parlors; and he does sincerely hope that we shall
soon become thoroughly refined in such matters.
He doesn't know but the etiquette is as yet a little
provincial, but he kindly thinks that its taint will
wear off by degrees.

He talks about the London Times, and hopes he
shall not lose sight of it; he feels quite an interest
in some of the noble families; and says it was
rumored as he left town, that his acquaintance, the
son of the Marquis of So and So, was about to
marry the Honorable Juliana Titus.

Drop to him a remark about the weather, and he
says he quite likes it—quite the London air; he
passed last season in London, and asks if the
steamer has arrived. At the hotels he affects the
English manner with the waiters—calling them
all `John,' and the porter, `boots'; or he strikes his
tumbler with his fork, and calls out accidentally,

Garcon! and will sometimes forget himself so far,
after dinner, as to call the stout Irish chambermaid
—mon petit chat!

He calls a hack-driver, cabman; and the omnibus
drivers, coachmen; he never says cents, but
pennies; and sometimes talks of ha'pennies, and
calls the Hudson, “Tems.” He talks about rectors,
and curates, and vicars, and good livings,
and says he quite unconsciously found himself
praying, the other Sunday, “for Her Most Gracious
Majesty, the Queen, and all the Royal Family!”

I fancy, Fritz, that you smile ironically at these
learned and accomplished graduates of foreign travel;
and your smiles are not ill-timed. And I am
half persuaded to cast aside reserve, and my quiet
habit of talk, to lash as they deserve these puerile
coxcombs, fed on their own vanity, and the tolerance
of the town. Yet there are plenty of weak ones—
not all of them weak from lack of years—who listen
with unction to such conceited babblers, and
who fructify this sort of celebrity, by renewing expressions
of applause, and studied smiles of adulation.

You are enough of an American, my dear Fritz,
though you have wintered in the snows of Petersbourg,
and lighted your spring with the delicious
glow of a Greek sun rising over the ægean, to wish

for something more earnest, strong, and manly in
American life, than will permit the every-day prostration
before the social Juggernaut of Europe!

When, in the name of Heaven, are we to have
an honest, simple, Republican basis for our socialities,
which shall not need, nor ask the meretricious
adornments of foreign style, and which shall reject
all miserable pilferers of those trappings which belong
to the lordly state of the Old World, as incapable
of manly intent, and a severe Republican
dignity?

The jackdaw may steal peacocks' feathers, but
they will not make him an eagle.