University of Virginia Library

10. THE LORGNETTE.

APRIL 4. NEW-YORK. NO. 10.

This little fragment of a letter touches me tenderly,
and shall have a full and courteous notice;
which, if it do not serve as vindication of my action,
will at least certify to my well-disposed correspondent,
the influence of her advices, and the
honesty of my disposition.

You, my dear Fritz, will I am sure be greatly
surprised to find me, who have been so long, and
untiringly the devoted friend, and admirer of the
gentler sex, suddenly become the object of their
frowns and animadversions. It is but poor remuneration,
surely, for a life spent in devotional
exercises toward the reigning half of Christendom,
to find myself subjected to the imputation of
libelous assault, and to the most heinous of all
charges — that of lack of gallantry. When you
recall, Fritz, my Quixotic career, scattered over
as it has been, with innumerable hazards, and such
hair-breadth escapes, as would have done honor to
the hero of La Mancha, or Santillane, you will
smile to think that any should be hardy enough to
impugn the action of my maturer age, and to
credit to unworthy motives, those whimsical observations
of mine, which are half made up of irony,
and half of covert praise. You will recognize the
apparent acerbity as only the occasional and delirious
excess of the fever of a life-long gallantry—
the accidental and interrupted lance-thrusts of an

old knight who trembles in his stirrups, and whose
blow is rendered only the more uncertain by reason
of the warmth of his blood, and the ecstasy of
his admiration.

True regard does not gloss over errors in the
objects of its attachment, but rather by judicious
mention of such as appear, seeks to win them
away from their occasional sinnings, and make
them worthier of that respect which grows by
witness of reform, and which covets excellence.

I have spoken, it may be, somewhat harshly,
and in castigating humor (if such humor can be
predicated of a mild old gentleman's remark) of
many of the ways of the fashionable ladies of the
hour; and if I have been a little extravagant, it
was only in the hope of frighting away from the
worst vanities of the town life, by exhibiting them
through the magnifying lenses of my glass. And
even supposing all to be real and unexaggerated,—
about which point I foresee that there will be much
difference of opinion, — yet I should in no whit
blame myself for the representation, but rather be
emboldened by the conviction, that I should still
possess the sympathies of those who suffer, the
compassion of those who are blinded, and the cordial
dislike of those who are guilty. Nor are the
times or opinions so corrupt, but that these should

prove very clever supports to any man who earnestly
seeks them. I know that I could sleep very
quietly upon them, and with a conscience `void
of offence.'

But have I a right, in remarking upon the untruth,
and frivolities of the social life in the city,
to bear so hardly, and so pertinently upon the ladies
of the town?

Most unquestionably: and in saying this, I do
them honor;—at least, such small honor as can be
reaped from the admission, that in energy, influence,
and activity, they are vastly before any of those
milliner gentry, calling themselves men, who affect
to set the rules, or to sway the fashions for our social
guidance. Who, pray, transfers the spectacle
from the stage, to the boxes of our Opera; who
sustains the drunken etiquette of the ball-room;
who favors, by toleration, study, and practice, the
most questionable of the foreign polkas; who
smiles upon the most needless of display, and
makes a parquette of pews; who gives a boy-tone
to the salon-talk; who fulminates the scandal, and
befriends the laced lacqueys? Who has translated
Mr. Browne—the new Enoch (not Una)—from the
funereal escutcheon of his undertaker's employ, to
the `heaven of invention' — invention of ball-room
tickets, and ball supplies; who has transmuted

thriving school-boys into rapt polkists; who
is arranging our marriages for convenience, and our
houses for mere display? Are not our town ladies
ordering these things to their own taste; who else
is competent? Will they not agree with me in
saying, that sensible men are not weak enough,
and that men without sense are not strong enough?

We, in our country, Fritz, have long given a supremacy
to the Eve section of the human family,
which has grown into a national characteristic.
We have become the troubadours, and knights
errant of the nineteenth century chivalry. It is an
American distinction. The rush and fever of business
which `steeps to the ears' nine out of ten of our
men, has indeed made the obeisance (the gallantry
if you please) a necessity; nevertheless, it exists,
and is insisted on. Gynocracy, to use the nomenclature
of a literary man, is the disorder of the
town; and the old anthropocracy (to humor the
critic's classical conceit) is known only to the
business alleys of the city.

Women are clearly responsible, then, for whatever
abuses obtain in our social life. They fix
our hours of sleep, of eating, dancing, and worship.
They make the rules of our receptions;
they give the formulas for the interchange of hospitalities;
they establish the ages of beaux and

belles, upon a basis somewhat similar to Sir Robert
Peel's `Sliding scale;' they give a character to
our music and our polkas; they rectify and sublimate
our devotions. They give the cue, even, to
education, and point out the limits of mental attainment.
In most of these, and specially the
last, they are easy masters, not pushing us into
much erudition, nor wearying us with the imposition
of much reading; nevertheless, they are in all
that relates to the social intercourse of life, our
lawgivers and taskmasters. The old Italian proverb,
`l'uomini sono azioni; le donne sono voci,' is
now reversed; women are deeds, and men, words.

If, then, we, their subordinates in these matters,
do sometimes suggest inquiry, or question action,
let them not take advantage of their superior position
to bear us down ignominiously, and silence us
by their frowns. Let them be generous as they
are strong; and suffer a quiet gentleman to throw
out such observations as his enfeebled sense may
suggest, without condemning him altogether, and
putting him to the pillory of their critiques.

I do not at all mean to imply the necessary ill-effects,
or the unnaturalness of any such state of
lady-government. Social life, next to domestic
(about which it is unfashionable to talk in the
city), is the woman's proper province. The affections

and passions which belong to her, are its
arbiters. Without her ballot, the most refined are
outcasts, and with it, the most slavish are admissible.
Even our respected friend Mr. Browne owes
his adroitness only to a right judgment of her
whimseys, and by really humoring, while he seems
to advise. The gracious sexton is not unworthy
the title of his old namesake, Tom. Browne.

The ladies rate the standing of every in-coming
family, and discuss and arrange the chances of its
position. Mercantile connections, and all the club
favors of gentlemen, are nothing to the familiar
reception of an accredited lady. It is only necessary
for an aspirant after social distinction, to be
`taken by the hand' of some notoriously well-known
lady, and presto, he finds himself transformed,
as quickly as the balls under a conjuror's cup,
from red to white, or from white to red. He may
woo, sigh, and grow faint of heart at the first,
without so much as the nod of a dowager's plume to
his earnest salutations; but let him once have the
public recognition of an umpire of the taste, and his
rusticity will grow into an eccentric refinement,
and he will be the mark for a multidude of favors
from the `middlings,' and of smiles from the well-taught.

Even John Timon has to avow his gratitude

to those who have extended to him the helping
hand, and who, notwithstanding the sneers of the
Journals, have introduced his paper to the favor of
elegant society; (and this, surely, not because I
have tickled their vanity!) It takes off certainly,
not a little from the face of the compliment, to
know that the most gauche, and splay-footed of
cockneys have been set up in the same way, and
that the character of those who get the accolade of
fellowship is not of so much importance, as their
bearing upon the boudoir tattle. What is talked
of, must be known.

And this brings me, Fritz, to a most ungracious
branch of my subject; not only are our town
ladies the arbiters of all social form, (as indeed they
properly should be,) but they are also gifted by
nature with a certain happy love of display; nor
has nature in this regard been improvidently left
to neglect, but has shot up, under judicious culture,
into a yearning after distinctions, and a ripeness
of vanity, as much superior to that of men, as
to that of beasts. In this, too, they maintain their
established eminence; with the worse sort, it
breeds the mercenary loves, the winks at vulgarity
and ignorance; and with the better, it creates
tolerance for manifest extravagances, and an easy
conscience under the coming reign of surplice, and

confessional, and the prettiest ceremonials of imported
Romanism. This has set the heraldic
panels to our carriages; this has tricked our coachmen
in liveries; and this is making our children
reverent of courtly display.

Town ladies make very poor democrats. They
are not tending toward any Greeley philosophy of
equality, but are cutting us up into sets, which, if
their theories mature, will ripen into aristocratic
castes. I do not mean to hint, Fritz, that I am a
believer in any Proudhonic system of social democracy,
or that superior refinement will not always
make itself distinct by elevation, as surely and as
unconsciously as Saturn burns brighter than the
smallest of the asteroids. But this token of superiority
is not reckoned in the schedule of our modes;
we fetch over instead such poor pickings from the
wardrobe of foreign rank, as will serve the vanities
of wealth, and not offend too openly the hurlyburly
vanity of the street. Exclusion is a far better
security for eminence than cultivation. Let me
throw it out, them, to the ladies, who have the power
in their hands (though it may seem like a bit of
stolidity, and mock seriousness,)—if it is not better
after all, to cultivate the dignity of the Roman
matron, or the fidelity of the Spartan mother,
though they were not crowned with jewels, than to

study, and ape those brilliancies, which made the
honor of a Maintenon, and the virtue of a De
l'Enclos?

The Journalists may vapor as they will, and the
clergy talk milk-and-water regrets, spreading their
sanctimonious admonitions softly on the heads of
respectable churches; yet if the women, in whose
hands the matter lies, do not waken their action,
while they gild their creeds, admonitions and
vapors will prove but waste wind. If the ladies of
ton will doat on boobies in their teens, they may
rest assured that the town will continue to furnish
an unfailing supply; if they will glory in gorgeousness
of equipage, the saddle men will thrive; if
their conversation lowers itself to the capacity of
school-boys, they will always be sure of devout
listeners; if belleship is measured by polking; and
refinement by opera-going, and blarney about Benedetti,
there will never be lack of belles, and never
a short cross of refinement. Honors are easily
worn which cost nothing in the getting; and that
cultivation will be easily sustained, whose only proof
and issue is a noisy claim of possession. Ridiculous
assumptions, and foolish foppery will never expire,
while they have the tender fondling of ladymothers.

The merchant might be content with his princely

mansion, comfortably garnished with all the appliances
for bed, books, and board; but the lady
must astonish her opposite neighbors, by the magnificence
of her curtains, and must ransack Marley's
or Baudouine, for some bit of furniture more outré
than any in the possession of her very dear friend
Madame Somebody else. The husband might possibly
be contented with moderate festivity among his
friends; but our Juno of the salon snubs her much
attached Jove, and distresses him with a houseful
of curiously-gathered lions. The father might be
satisfied with a wholesome education for his daughter,
throwing out the newest of the polkas, and the
making of sonnets; but the Mamma overrules,
and encourages cultivation by the most modern of
the dances, perseverance by the latest of the hours,
and humility by the lowest of the low-necked
dresses. The `old gentleman' might keep his son
at study until he is firm upon his legs, and show
some signs of beard; but our elegant lady must
push him early at Saracco's, and gratify her motherly
ambition with his proficiency in the ball-room,
and by the professional praises of Mr. Browne.

The husband, poor fellow, might have some taste
for what used to be called domestication, with his
hopeful son, and his polking daughter, at his side;
but the concerts, operas, balls, and Broadway

promenades have arranged it for him otherwise; if
he admires, he must admire where they most study
to be admired; and if he rebels, he will very likely
be compelled to bury his rebellion at the club, and
cheer himself with a cigar, and the yesterday's
papers. He will have no more hand in forming the
tastes or character of his daughter, than our hero
Martel, or the most assiduous of the polka
dancers.

And here, Fritz, I come upon another topic,
which it will be ungrateful to handle. Womanly
eminence in our day and town is turned away
from the hearth, and runs riot in the streets.
What lady can be found so silly as to aspire to the
distinction of being a good housekeeper, affectionate
mother, or tender wife? What one, so shortsighted
as not to sigh for the reputation of showing
the latest modes, of appreciating the most worthless
opera, or of driving the most stylish equipage?

Praise is no longer looked for at home, but in the
world. Merit is reckoned by the club-room babble
and the newspaper `item.' Contempt of less things
grows naturally upon the love of the greater and
noisier. Dash is worth more than virtue; town-talk
is better than the commendation of a friend.
To achieve position in a set, where the position

shall have public recognition, is an aim dearer to
hundreds of our hopeful ladies, than any domestic
and worthy nobility. The old-fashioned notion
that a woman's throne might be built up highest
at home is exploded; publicity is the testimony to
her honor, and the end of her ambition. The
Lucretias are growing rare, while the Tarquins are
thickening. The Lares are transplanted from the
fireside, and are set up, like the painted images in
Papal Switzerland, at the shop windows, and
street corners. The only vestal fire to be heard of,
is in the blaze of the opera chandelier.

Our `leaders of ton' do not care so much to please
as to astonish, and had rather bewilder by the multiplication
of etiquette, than attract by its simplicity.
John Timon takes the liberty of telling
them, that in this they steer as wide of good
breeding as of kind intent. Mackenzie says, somewhere—`A
great man may perhaps be well-bred
in a manner which little people do not understand;
but trust me, he is a greater man who is well-bred
in a manner that everybody understands.'

What do we derive from all this, Fritz? First,
that the ladies of our town have the control of our
social life; second, that their native vanity is not
shocked at the consciousness of the power; and
third, that that vanity is unfortunately wedded to a

publicity that braves modesty, begets scandal, and
beggars morals.

Nor shall I allow myself to be condemned for
this judgment, without bringing testimony for its
support; and such testimony can surely be found
in this letter which has come to hand within the
week past, and in which I waive the equivocal
compliment its author has paid me, for the truth
and sincerity of the subject matter.

I know not how to give advice on so serious a
matter as my correspondent has here broached,
without a more attentive consideration than I am
now able to bestow. She may rest assured, however,
that the subject shall not pass from my mind
without mature reflection, and such attention from
the Lorgnette as its importance demands.

THE BOSTONIAN.

It takes a vast deal to drive a man's habit or his
nature out of him; the English philosopher says
as much in his quaint Latinity. From this it follows,
my dear Fritz, that all you see in New York
are not New Yorkers. Neither tailors, nor hair-dressers,

nor the club-talk, can so transform a man
but that you shall see in him the lees of the ancient.
Indeed, between the Hotels, the Opera-house, and
the street, our town is not a bad point from which
to study the characteristics of the nation.

The people of the Town are not destitute of a
modicum of charity, and look with feelings of
proper Christian benevolence upon all strangers, of
whatever cut; while at the same time they wear
an air of what seems most natural and unconscious
superiority. But I observe that this is so carefully
concealed, that the greater part of strangers, especially
those from the neighbor cities, do not see it
at all; and are apt to flatter themselves into the
belief that they are passing current in the street
throng, as indigenous and unadulterated specimens.
Indeed, none but a Bostonian would ever resent
being taken for a New Yorker; and so carefully do
they of the sister city guard their identity by dress,
action, and speech, that none but the most careless
observer would ever affront them with the charge.

The Bostonian is strongly impressed with the
idea that his city is the particular nucleus of all
that there is great on this side of the Atlantic. He
looks upon other American towns as small planetary
bodies revolving about the centre of Boston
Common, and deriving most of their light, heat,

and strength from Cambridge University, Fanueil
Hall, and Boston Harbor. He affects a wonderful
degree of kinship with the English; and keeps
up the connection by sharp shirt collars, short-waisted
coats, and yellow gaiters. He is apt to
put himself upon English stilts to look down upon
the rest of the American world, which he regards
complacently through an English eye-glass. He
does not so much pity the rest of the American
world, as he patronizes and encourages. His literary
tastes being formed in the focus of western
learning, are naturally correct and profound. He
squats himself upon the Boston formulas of judgment,
from which nothing can shake him, and puts
out his feelers of opinion, as you may have seen a
lazy, bottle-tailed bug try his whereabouts, without
once stirring, by means of his glutinous and manyjointed
antennæ.

He likes to try you in discussion, in the course
of which it will be next to impossible to tell him
anything that he did not previously know; and you
will prove a rare exception, if he does not
tell you many things that you never knew before—unless,
indeed, you have been in Boston.
His stock of praises is uncommonly small, and
principally reserved for home consumption; things
are done well, only in Boston; though they are

sometimes creditably done in other parts of the
world.

His superiority in arts, letters, science, and religion,
of which he will endeavor strenuously to
convince one, is attributable partially to education,
but mainly to his being a Bostonian. Whatever
idea, or system of ideas, whether in polities, arts,
or literature, which had not its beginning, or has
not had its naturalization in Boston, is a fungous
growth upon the great body of American opinion,
which must of necessity wither and perish.

The Bostonian entertains the somewhat singular
notion that whatever he has never observed, is not
worth observing; and that the very few matters
of fact and fancy scattered about the country,
which are unbeknown to Bostonians, are not worth
their knowing. This gives him under all ordinary
circumstances a self-possession, and dignity of address
which is quite remarkable. He does not
conceive it possible that classical scholarship should
thrive at all, out of sight of the belfry of the old
South Church; and such chance citations from
classic authors, as may appear on pages printed in
other parts of the country, he considers filched in
some way out of Boston books. He regards all
those making any profession of learning, out of his
own limits, very much as an under pedagogue will

eye a promising boy of the `first form' who occasionally
hears recitations.

He plumes himself specially on his precision and
exactness; you will never see a Bostonian with the
lower button of his waistcoat uncaught, and he is
uniformly punctual to his dinner hour. Vivacity
he condemns from principle—and the best of all
principle, which is—Boston principle. Even in
religion, he does not recognize the hot zeal of earnest
intention, nor does he run toward the lusts of
ceremonial. He is coy to acknowledge even the
personnel of a Divine Mediation; his dignity does
not like to admit a superior between himself and
the Highest. The comparative chilliness of the
Unitarian faith suits the evenness of his temper;
and when he casts loose from this unique doctrine,
which is to many a pure and holy faith, he runs
inevitably into the iciness of Pantheism.

In politics he is Bostonian. He speaks lightly of
the French, and of French Republicanism, and
indeed of most sorts of Republicanism which are
not reducible immediately or remotely to Boston
Republicanism. He has a very tender charity, too,
for the gross legal tyranny of his ancestral English;
and such of his sympathies as ramify beyond
his Pontine marshes, or the Roxbury plains,

clasp stoutly round the mosses and blotches of
the royal oak of Britain.

In manners he is true to his faith; he walks
stiffly, dances stiffly, and bows stiffly. Like the
Englishman, he assimilates little with those among
whom he may chance to fall: he guards his integrity
by exception. His idea of elegance centres
in precision; and the ease that he possesses is
never more than familiarity. He is, like the Virginian,
usually of an `old family;' whoever heard
of any other sort of families in the Old Dominion,
or the `Cradle of Liberty'?

The Bostonian sneers at the riff-raff of New York
society, and will sometimes put a clever edge upon
his sneers. He is the favorite of such ladies as
love bookish talk, and who will not worry at an
awkward polka. He is quicker at a bargain than
a waltz, and he counts his town-talent a fair offset
to the money and the graces of our belles. A lui
le talent,—à nos femmes la fortune; tout cela peut
se marier. He reads the Boston Atlas, and Boston
books; he sighs for Boston Common; and lunches
on Boston crackers.

All this, it must be understood, my dear Fritz, is
predicated upon such stray specimens as may be
seen here and there wandering down our streets,
or adorning the corners, at our balls. That there

is very much worthiness, that is here unnoted, about
the race which belongs to Boston, the world knows.
And if I were to make a particularity that should
have its point, I would say that the admirable
police, and municipal regulations of the sister city,
its well-ordered pavements and well-swept streets,
are worthy of all commendation, and much copy.
And the Bostonian may well boast, that while our
City Fathers are lazily drinking their tea in sight
of our city desolation, that snug Eastern Seaport is
gaining upon us by forced marches in all the commoner
and most comfortable types of an advanced
civilization.

As for the vagrant Bostonian, with whom I began,
and who brings his doctrinas, and his antiquum
with him, it is sincerely to be hoped that he will
in time fall away from the greatness of his unbelief;
and be willing to credit that eyes, heart, tongue,
and brain have been mercifully vouchsafed to
people in various parts of the world, by the same
kind Providence which has so overstocked Boston
Town.