University of Virginia Library

I.
“Our Best Society.”

If gilt were only gold, or sugar-candy common
sense, what a fine thing our society would
be! If to lavish money upon objets de vertu,
to wear the most costly dresses, and always to
have them cut in the height of the fashion; to
build houses thirty feet broad, as if they were
palaces; to furnish them with all the luxurious
devices of Parisian genius; to give superb banquets,
at which your guests laugh, and which
make you miserable; to drive a fine carriage
and ape European liveries, and crests, and coats-of-arms;
to resent the friendly advances of your
baker's wife, and the lady of your butcher (you
being yourself a cobbler's daughter); to talk
much of the “old families” and of your aristocratic

foreign friends; to despise labour; to
prate of “good society;” to travesty and parody,
in every conceivable way, a society which we
know only in books and by the superficial
observation of foreign travel, which arises out
of a social organization entirely unknown to us,
and which is opposed to our fundamental and
essential principles; if all this were fine, what
a prodigiously fine society would ours be!

This occurred to us upon lately receiving a
card of invitation to a brilliant ball. We
were quietly ruminating over our evening fire,
with Disraeli's Wellington speech, “all tears,”
in our hands, with the account of a great man's
burial, and a little man's triumph across the
channel. So many great men gone, we mused,
and such great crises impending! This democratic
movement in Europe; Kossuth and Mazzini
waiting for the moment to give the word;
the Russian bear watchfully sucking his paws;
the Napoleonic empire redivivus; Cuba, and
annexation, and slavery; California and Australia,
and the consequent considerations of
political economy; dear me! exclaimed we,

putting on a fresh hodful of coal, we must look
a little into the state of parties.

As we put down the coal-scuttle there was a
knock at the door. We said, “come in,” and
in came a neat Alhambra-watered envelope,
containing the announcement that the queen
of fashion was “at home” that evening week.
Later in the evening, came a friend to smoke a
cigar. The card was lying upon the table, and
he read it with eagerness. “You'll go, of
course,” said he, “for you will meet all the `best
society.' ”

Shall we, truly? Shall we really see the
“best society of the city,” the picked flower of
its genius, character, and beauty? What makes
the “best society” of men and women? The
noblest specimens of each, of course. The men
who mould the time, who refresh our faith in
heroism and virtue, who make Plato, and Zeno,
and Shakspeare, and all Shakspeare's gentlemen,
possible again. The women, whose beauty,
and sweetness, and dignity, and high accomplishment,
and grace, make us understand the
Greek Mythology, and weaken our desire to

have some glimpse of the most famous women
of history. The “best society” is that in which
the virtues are most shining, which is the most
charitable, forgiving, long-suffering, modest,
and innocent. The “best society” is, in its
very name, that in which there is the least
hypocrisy and insincerity of all kinds, which
recoils from, and blasts, artificiality, which is
anxious to be all that it is possible to be,
and which sternly reprobates all shallow pretence,
all coxcombry and foppery, and insists
upon simplicity as the infallible characteristic
of true worth. That is the “best society,” which
comprises the best men and women.

Had we recently arrived from the moon, we
might, upon hearing that we were to meet the
“best society,” have fancied that we were about to
enjoy an opportunity not to be overvalued. But
unfortunately we were not so freshly arrived.
We had received other cards, and had perfected
our toilette many times, to meet this same society,
so magnificently described, and had found
it the least “best” of all. Who compose it?
Whom shall we meet if we go to this ball?

We shall meet three classes of persons: first,
those who are rich, and who have all that money
can buy; second, those who belong to what
are technically called “the good old families,”
because some ancestor was a man of mark in
the state or country, or was very rich, and has
kept the fortune in the family; and, thirdly, a
swarm of youths who can dance dexterously,
and who are invited for that purpose. Now
these are all arbitrary and factitious distinctions
upon which to found so profound a social
difference as that which exists in American, or,
at least, in New York society. First, as a general
rule, the rich men of every community
who make their own money are not the most
generally intelligent and cultivated. They
have a shrewd talent which secures a fortune,
and which keeps them closely at the work of
amassing from their youngest years until they
are old. They are sturdy men of simple tastes
often. Sometimes, though rarely, very generous,
but necessarily with an altogether false and exaggerated
idea of the importance of money.
They are a rather rough, unsympathetic, and,
perhaps, selfish class, who, themselves, despise
purple and fine linen, and still prefer a cot-bed
and a bare room, although they may be worth
millions. But they are married to scheming, or
ambitious, or disappointed women, whose life is
a prolonged pageant, and they are dragged
hither and thither in it, are bled of their golden
blood, and forced into a position they do not
covet and which they despise. Then there are
the inheritors of wealth. How many of them
inherit the valiant genius and hard frugality
which built up their fortunes; how many acknowledge
the stern and heavy responsibility
of their opportunities; how many refuse to
dream their lives away in a Sybarite luxury;
how many are smitten with the lofty ambition
of achieving an enduring name by works of a
permanent value; how many do not dwindle
into dainty dilettanti, and dilute their manhood
with factitious sentimentality instead of a hearty,
human sympathy; how many are not satisfied
with having the fastest horses and the “crackest”
carriages, and an unlimited wardrobe, and a weak
affectation and puerile imitation of foreign life?

And who are these of our secondly, these
“old families”? The spirit of our time and of
our country knows no such thing, but the habitué
of “society” hears constantly of “a good
family.” It means simply, the collective mass
of children, grandchildren, nephews, nieces, and
descendants of some man who deserved well
of his country, and whom his country honors.
But sad is the heritage of a great name! The
son of Burke will inevitably be measured by
Burke. The niece of Pope must show some
superiority to other women (so to speak), or her
equality is inferiority. The feeling of men attributes
some magical charm to blood, and we
look to see the daughter of Helen as fair as
her mother, and the son of Shakspeare musical
as his sire. If they are not so, if they are
merely names, and common persons—if there
is no Burke, nor Shakspeare, nor Washington,
nor Bacon, in their words, or actions, or lives,
then we must pity them, and pass gently on,
not upbraiding them, but regretting that it is
one of the laws of greatness that it dwindles all
things in its vicinity, which would otherwise

show large enough. Nay, in our regard for the
great man, we may even admit to a compassionate
honor, as pensioners upon our charity,
those who bear and transmit his name. But if
these heirs should presume upon that fame, and
claim any precedence of living men and women
because their dead grandfather was a hero,—
they must be shown the door directly. We
should dread to be born a Percy, or a Colonna,
or a Bonaparte. We should not like to be the
second Duke of Wellington, nor Charles Dickens,
jr. It is a terrible thing, one would say, to a
mind of honorable feeling, to be pointed out
as somebody's son, or uncle, or granddaughter,
as if the excellence were all derived. It must
be a little humiliating to reflect that if your
great uncle had not been somebody, you would
be nobody,—that, in fact, you are only a name,
and that, if you should consent to change it for
the sake of a fortune, as is sometimes done,
you would cease to be any thing but a rich
man. “My father was President, or Governor
of the State,” some pompous man may say.
But, by Jupiter! king of gods and men, what

[ILLUSTRATION] [Description: 534EAF. Illustration page. Image of three men in a drawing room. The man on the left is standing in front of tilting feet-head mirror, adjusting his tie. The man on the right is sitting in a large chair with his hands pressed together as if in deep thought. His profile is the only thing seen by the reader. In the center of the image is a tall and forbidding man staring straight out at the reader. He is glaring out and pulling on dress-gloves that match his suit.]

are you? is the instinctive response. Do you
not see, our pompous friend, that you are only
pointing your own unimportance? If your
father was Governor of the State, what right
have you to use that fact only to fatten your
self-conceit? Take care, good care; for whether
you say it by your lips or by your life, that
withering response awaits you,—“then what are
you?” If your ancestor was great, you are
under bonds to greatness. If you are small,
make haste to learn it betimes, and, thanking
Heaven that your name has been made illustrious,
retire into a corner and keep it, at least,
untarnished.

Our thirdly, is a class made by sundry French
tailors, bootmakers, dancing-masters, and Mr.
Brown. They are a corps-de-ballet, for the use
of private entertainments. They are fostered by
society for the use of young debutantes, and
hardier damsels, who have dared two or three
years of the “tight” polka. They are cultivated
for their heels, not their heads. Their life begins
at ten o'clock in the evening, and lasts
until four in the morning. They go home and

sleep until nine; then they reel, sleepy, to
counting-houses and offices, and doze on desks
until dinner-time. Or, unable to do that, they
are actively at work all day, and their cheeks
grow pale, and their lips thin, and their eyes
bloodshot and hollow, and they drag themselves
home at evening to catch a nap until the ball
begins, or to dine and smoke at their club, and
be very manly with punches and coarse stories;
and then to rush into hot and glittering rooms,
and seize very décolleté girls closely around the
waist, and dash with them around an area of
stretched linen, saying in the panting pauses,
“How very hot it is!” “How very pretty Miss
Podge looks!” “What a good redowa!” “Are
you going to Mrs. Potiphar's?”

Is this the assembled flower of manhood and
womanhood, called “best society,” and to see
which is so envied a privilege? If such are
the elements, can we be long in arriving at the
present state, and necessary future condition of
parties?

“Vanity Fair” is peculiarly a picture of modern
society. It aims at English follies, but its

mark is universal, as the madness is. It is
called a satire, but after much diligent reading,
we cannot discover the satire. A state of society
not at all superior to that of “Vanity Fair” is
not unknown to our experience; and, unless
truth-telling be satire; unless the most tragically
real portraiture be satire; unless scalding tears of
sorrow, and the bitter regret of a manly mind
over the miserable spectacle of artificiality, wasted
powers, misdirected energies, and lost opportunities,
be satirical; we do not find satire in that
sad story. The reader closes it with a grief beyond
tears. It leaves a vague apprehension in
the mind, as if we should suspect the air to be
poisoned. It suggests the terrible thought of
the enfeebling of moral power, and the deterioration
of noble character, as a necessary consequence
of contact with “society.” Every man
looks suddenly and sharply around him, and
accosts himself and his neighbors, to ascertain
if they are all parties to this corruption. Sentimental
youths and maidens, upon velvet sofas,
or in calf-bound libraries, resolve that it is an
insult to human nature—are sure that their
velvet and calf-bound friends are not like the
dramatis personœ of “Vanity Fair,” and that
the drama is therefore hideous and unreal. They
should remember, what they uniformly and universally
forget, that we are not invited, upon
the rising of the curtain, to behold a cosmorama,
or picture of the world, but a representation
of that part of it called Vanity Fair.
What its just limits are—how far its poisonous
purlieus reach—how much of the world's air
is tainted by it, is a question which every
thoughtful man will ask himself, with a shudder,
and look sadly around, to answer. If the
sentimental objectors rally again to the charge,
and declare that, if we wish to improve the
world, its virtuous ambition must be piqued
and stimulated by making the shining heights
of “the ideal” more radiant; we reply, that
none shall surpass us in honoring the men
whose creations of beauty inspire and instruct
mankind. But if they benefit the world, it is
no less ture that a vivid apprehension of the
depths into which we are sunken or may sink,
nerves the soul's courage quite as much as the
alluring mirage of the happy heights we may
attain. “To hold the mirror up to Nature,” is
still the most potent method of shaming sin and
strengthening virtue.

If “Vanity Fair” is a satire, what novel of
society is not? Are “Vivian Grey,” and “Pelham,”
and the long catalogue of books illustrating
English, or the host of Balzacs, Sands,
Sues, and Dumas, that paint French society,
any less satires? Nay, if you should catch any
dandy in Broadway, or in Pall-Mall, or upon
the Boulevards, this very morning, and write a
coldly true history of his life and actions, his
doings and undoings, would it not be the most
scathing and tremendous satire?—if by satire
you mean the consuming melancholy of the
conviction, that the life of that pendant to a
moustache, is an insult to the possible life of a
man?

We have read of a hypocrisy so thorough,
that it was surprised you should think it hypocritical;
and we have bitterly thought of the
saying, when hearing one mother say of another
mother's child, that she had “made a good

match,” because the girl was betrothed to a stupid
boy whose father was rich. The remark
was the key of our social feeling.

Let us look at it a little, and, first of all, let
the reader consider the criticism, and not the
critic. We may like very well, in our individual
capacity, to partake of the delicacies
prepared by our hostess's chef, we may not
be averse to paté and myriad objets de goût, and
if you caught us in a corner at the next ball,
putting away a fair share of dinde aux truffes,
we know you would have at us in a tone of
great moral indignation, and wish to know why
we sneaked into great houses, eating good suppers,
and drinking choice wines, and then went
away with an indigestion, to write dyspeptic
disgusts at society.

We might reply that it is necessary to know
something of a subject before writing about it,
and that if a man wished to describe the habits
of South Sea Islanders, it is useless to go to
Greenland; we might also confess a partiality
for paté, and a tenderness for truffes, and acknowledge
that, considering our single absence

would not put down extravagant, pompous parties,
we were not strong enough to let the morsels
drop into unappreciating mouths; or we might
say, that if a man invited us to see his new
house, it would not be ungracious nor insulting
to his hospitality, to point out whatever weak
parts we might detect in it, nor to declare our
candid conviction, that it was built upon wrong
principles and could not stand. He might believe
us if we had been in the house, but he
certainly would not, if we had never seen it.
Nor would it be a very wise reply upon his
part, that we might build a better if we didn't
like that. We are not fond of David's pictures,
but we certainly could never paint half so well;
nor of Pope's poetry, but posterity will never
hear of our verses. Criticism is not construction,
it is observation. If we could surpass in its
own way every thing which displeased us, we
should make short work of it, and instead of
showing what fatal blemishes deform our present
society, we should present a specimen of perfection,
directly.

We went to the brilliant ball. There was

too much of every thing. Too much light, and
eating, and drinking, and dancing, and flirting,
and dressing, and feigning, and smirking, and
much too many people. Good taste insists first
upon fitness. But why had Mrs. Potiphar given
this ball? We inquired industriously, and learned
it was because she did not give one last year.
Is it then essential to do this thing biennially?
inquired we with some trepidation. “Certainly,”
was the bland reply, “or society will
forget you.” Every body was unhappy at Mrs.
Potiphar's, save a few girls and boys, who danced
violently all the evening. Those who did not
dance walked up and down the rooms as well
as they could, squeezing by non-dancing ladies,
causing them to swear in their hearts as the
brusque broadcloth carried away the light outworks
of gauze and gossamer. The dowagers,
ranged in solid phalanx, occupied all the chairs
and sofas against the wall, and fanned themselves
until supper-time, looking at each other's diamonds,
and criticising the toilettes of the younger
ladies, each narrowly watching her peculiar Polly
Jane, that she did not betray too much interest
in any man who was not of a certain fortune.
It is the cold, vulgar truth, madam, nor are we
in the slightest degree exaggerating. Elderly
gentlemen, twisting single gloves in a very
wretched manner, came up and bowed to the
dowagers, and smirked, and said it was a pleasant
party, and a handsome house, and then
clutched their hands behind them, and walked
miserably away, looking as affable as possible.
And the dowagers made a little fun of the
elderly gentlemen, among themselves, as they
walked away.

Then came the younger non-dancing men—a
class of the community who wear black cravats
and waistcoats, and thrust their thumbs and
forefingers in their waistcoat pockets, and are
called “talking men.” Some of them are literary,
and affect the philosopher; have, perhaps,
written a book or two, and are a small species
of lion to very young ladies. Some are of the
blasé kind; men who affect the extremest elegance,
and are reputed “so aristocratic,” and
who care for nothing in particular, but wish
they had not been born gentlemen, in which

case they might have escaped ennui. These
gentlemen stand with hat in hand, and coats
and trowsers most unexceptionable. They are
the “so gentlemanly” persons of whom one hears
a great deal, but which seems to mean nothing
but cleanliness. Vivian Grey and Pelham are
the models of their ambition, and they succeed
in being Pendennis. They enjoy the reputation
of being “very clever,” and “very talented fellows,”
“smart chaps,” &c., but they refrain from
proving what is so generously conceded. They
are often men of a certain cultivation. They
have travelled, many of them,—spending a year
or two in Paris, and a month or two in the rest
of Europe. Consequently they endure society
at home, with a smile, and a shrug, and a graceful
superciliousness, which is very engaging.
They are perfectly at home, and they rather
despise Young America, which, in the next
room, is diligently earning its invitation. They
prefer to hover about the ladies who did not
come out this season, but are a little used to
the world, with whom they are upon most
friendly terms, and who criticise together very
freely all the great events in the great world
of fashion.

These elegant Pendennises we saw at Mrs.
Potiphar's, but not without a sadness which can
hardly be explained. They had been boys once,
all of them, fresh and frank-hearted, and full of
a noble ambition. They had read and pondered
the histories of great men; how they resolved,
and struggled, and achieved. In the pure portraiture
of genius, they had loved and honoured
noble women, and each young heart was sworn
to truth and the service of beauty. Those feelings
were chivalric and fair. Those boyish instincts
clung to whatever was lovely, and rejected
the specious snare, however graceful and elegant.
They sailed, new knights, upon that old and endless
crusade against hypocrisy and the devil, and
they were lost in the luxury of Corinth, nor
longer seek the difficult shores beyond. A present
smile was worth a future laurel. The ease
of the moment was worth immortal tranquillity.
They renounced the stern worship of the unknown
God, and acknowledged the deities of
Athens. But the seal of their shame is their

own smile at their early dreams, and the high
hopes of their boyhood, their sneering infidelity
of simplicity, their skepticism of motives and of
men. Youths, whose younger years were fervid
with the resolution to strike and win, to deserve,
at least, a gentle remembrance, if not a
dazzling fame, are content to eat, and drink,
and sleep well; to go to the opera and all the
balls; to be known as “gentlemanly,” and
“aristocratic,” and “dangerous,” and “elegant;”
to cherish a luxurious and enervating indolence,
and to “succeed,” upon the cheap reputation of
having been “fast” in Paris. The end of such
men is evident enough from the beginning.
They are snuffed out by a “great match,” and
become an appendage to a rich woman; or
they dwindle off into old roués, men of the
world in sad earnest, and not with elegant
affectation, blasé; and as they began Arthur
Pendennises, so they end the Major. But,
believe it, that old fossil heart is wrung sometimes
by a mortal pang, as it remembers those
squandered opportunities and that lost life.

From these groups we passed into the dancing-room.

[ILLUSTRATION] [Description: 534EAF. Illustration page. Image depicts a man in a suit and a woman in a flouncy dress dancing. The woman, who has bows covering her ruffled skirt, has her back to the reader, while the man stares out to the side as he raises her arm.]

We have seen dancing in other countries,
and dressing. We have certainly never seen
gentlemen dance so easily, gracefully and well
as the American. But the style of dancing, in
its whirl, its rush, its fury, is only equalled by
that of the masked balls at the French opera,
and the balls at the Salle Valentino, the Jardin
Mabille, the Chateau Rouge, and other favourite
resorts of Parisian Grisettes and Lorettes. We
saw a few young men looking upon the dance
very soberly, and, upon inquiry, learned that
they were engaged to certain Iadies of the corps-de-ballet.
Nor did we wonder that the spectacle
of a young woman whirling in a décolleté
state, and in the embrace of a warm youth,
around a heated room, induced a little sobriety
upon her lover's face, if not a sadness in his
heart. Amusement, recreation, enjoyment! There
are no more beautiful things. But this proceeding
falls under another head. We watched the
various toilettes of these bounding belles. They
were rich and tasteful. But a man at our elbow,
of experience and shrewd observation, said, with
a sneer, for which we called him to account,
“I observe that American ladies are so rich in
charms that they are not at all chary of them.
It is certainly generous to us miserable black
coats. But, do you know, it strikes me as a
generosity of display that must necessarily leave
the donor poorer in maidenly feeling.” We
thought ourselves cynical, but this was intolerable;
and in a very crisp manner we demanded
an apology.

“Why,” responded our friend with more of
sadness than of satire in his tone, “why are you
so exasperated? Look at this scene! Consider
that this is, really, the life of these girls. This
is what they `come out' for. This is the end of
their ambition. They think of it, dream of it, long
for it. Is it amusement? Yes, to a few, possibly.
But listen, and gather, if you can, from their
remarks (when they make any) that they have
any thought beyond this, and going to church
very rigidly on Sunday. The vigor of polking
and church-going are proportioned; as is the one
so is the other. My young friend, I am no
ascetic, and do not suppose a man is damned
because he dances. But Life is not a ball (more's

the pity, truly, for these butterflies), nor is its
sole duty and delight, dancing. When I consider
this spectacle,—when I remember what a
noble and beautiful woman is, what a manly man,
—when I reel, dazzled by this glare, drunken
with these perfumes, confused by this alluring
music, and reflect upon the enormous sums
wasted in a pompous profusion that delights no
one,—when I look around upon all this rampant
vulgarity in tinsel and Brussels lace, and think
how fortunes go, how men struggle and lose the
bloom of their honesty, how women hide in a
smiling pretence, and eye with caustic glances
their neighbor's newer house, diamonds, or porcelain,
and observe their daughters, such as
these,—why, I tremble and tremble, and this
scene to-night, every `crack' ball this winter will
be, not the pleasant society of men and women,
but—even in this young country—an orgie such
as rotting Corinth saw, a frenzied festival of Rome
in its decadence.”

There was a sober truth in this bitterness, and
we turned away to escape the sombre thought
of the moment. Addressing one of the panting

Houris who stood melting in a window, we spoke
(and confess how absurdly) of the Düsseldorf
Gallery. It was merely to avoid saying how
warm the room was, and how pleasant the party
was; facts upon which we had already sufficiently
enlarged. “Yes, they are pretty pictures; but
la! how long it must have taken Mr. Düsseldorf
to paint them all;” was the reply.

By the Farnesian Hercules! no Roman sylph
in her city's decline would ever have called the
sun-god, Mr. Apollo. We hope that Houri melted
entirely away in the window, but we certainly did
not stay to see.

Passing out toward the supper-room we encountered
two young men. “What, Hal,” said
one, “you at Mrs. Potiphar's?” It seems that Hal
was a sprig of one of the “old families.” “Well,
Joe,” said Hal, a little confused, “it is a little
strange. The fact is I didn't mean to be here,
but I concluded to compromise by coming, and
not being introduced to the host.” Hal could come,
eat Potiphar's supper, drink his wines, spoil his
carpets, laugh at his fashionable struggles, and
affect the puppyism of a foreign Lord, because

he disgraced the name of a man who had done
some service somewhere, while Potiphar was only
an honest man who made a fortune.

The supper-room was a pleasant place. The
table was covered with a chaos of supper. Every
thing sweet and rare, and hot and cold, solid and
liquid, was there. It was the very apotheosis of
gilt gingerbread. There was a universal rush and
struggle. The charge of the guards at Waterloo
was nothing to it. Jellies, custard, oyster-soup,
ice-cream, wine and water, gushed in profuse cascades
over transparent precipices of tulle, muslin,
gauze, silk, and satin. Clumsy boys tumbled
against costly dresses and smeared them with
preserves,—when clean plates failed, the contents
of plates already used were quietly “chucked”
under the table—heel-taps of champagne were
poured into the oyster tureens or overflowed
upon plates to clear the glasses—wine of all
kinds flowed in torrents, particularly down the
throats of very young men, who evinced their
manhood by becoming noisy, troublesome, and
disgusting, and were finally either led, sick, into
the hat room, or carried out of the way, drunk.

The supper over, the young people attended by
their matrons descended to the dancing-room for
the “German.” This is a dance commencing
usually at midnight or a little after, and continuing
indefinitely toward daybreak. The young
people were attended by their matrons, who were
there to supervise the morals and manners of
their charges. To secure the performance of this
duty, the young people took good care to sit
where the matrons could not see them, nor did
they, by any chance, look toward the quarter in
which the matrons sat. In that quarter, through
all the varying mazes of the prolonged dance, to
two o'clock, to three, to four, sat the bediamonded
dowagers, the mothers, the matrons,—against nature,
against common sense. They babbled with
each other, they drowsed, they dozed. Their fans
fell listless into their laps. In the adjoining room,
out of the waking sight, even, of the then sleeping
mammas, the daughters whirled in the close
embrace of partners who had brought down bottles
of champagne from the supper-room, and
put them by the side of their chairs for occasional
refreshment during the dance. The dizzy
hours staggered by—“Azalia, you must come
now,” had been already said a dozen times, but
only as by the scribes. Finally it was declared
with authority. Azalia went,—Amelia—Arabella.
The rest followed. There was prolonged cloaking,
there were lingering farewells. A few papas
were in the supper-room, sitting among the débris
of game. A few young non-dancing husbands
sat beneath gas unnaturally bright, reading whatever
chance book was at hand, and thinking of
the young child at home waiting for mamma
who was dancing the “German” below. A few
exhausted matrons sat in the robing-room, tired,
sad, wishing Jane would come up; assailed at
intervals by a vague suspicion that it was not
quite worth while; wondering how it was they
used to have such good times at balls; yawning,
and looking at their watches; while the
regular beat of the music below, with sardonic
sadness, continued. At last Jane came up, had
had the most glorious time, and went down with
mamma to the carriage, and so drove home.
Even the last Jane went—the last noisy youth
was expelled, and Mr. and Mrs. Potiphar having
duly performed their biennial social duty,
dismissed the music, ordered the servants to
count the spoons, and an hour or two after
daylight went to bed. Enviable Mr. and Mrs.
Potiphar!

We are now prepared for the great moral indignation
of the friend who saw us eating our
dinde aux truffes in that remarkable supper-room.
We are waiting to hear him say in the most
moderate and “gentlemanly” manner, that it is
all very well to select flaws and present them
as specimens, and to learn from him, possibly
with indignant publicity, that the present condition
of parties is not what we have intimated.
Or, in his quiet and pointed way, he may smile
at our fiery assault upon edged flounces and nuga
pyramids, and the kingdom of Lilliput in general.

Yet, after all, and despite the youths who are
led out, and carried home, or who stumble through
the “German,” this is a sober matter. My friend
told us we should see the “best society.” But he
is a prodigious wag. Who make this country?
From whom is its character of unparalleled enterprise,
heroism and success derived? Who

have given it its place in the respect and the
fear of the world? Who, annually, recruit its
energies, confirm its progress, and secure its triumph?
Who are its characteristic children, the
pith, the sinew, the bone of its prosperity? Who
found, and direct, and continue its manifold institutions
of mercy and education? Who are,
essentially, Americans? Indignant friend, these
classes, whoever they may be, are the “best
society,” because they alone are the representatives
of its character and cultivation. They are
the “best society” of New York, of Boston, of
Baltimore, of St. Louis, of New Orleans, whether
they live upon six hundred or sixty thousand
dollars a year—whether they inhabit princely
houses in fashionable streets (which they often
do), or not—whether their sons have graduated
at Celarius' and the Jardin Mabille, or have never
been out of their fathers' shops—whether they
have “air” and “style,” and are “so gentlemanly”
and “so aristocratic,” or not. Your shoemaker,
your lawyer, your butcher, your clergyman—if
they are simple and steady, and, whether
rich or poor, are unseduced by the sirens of extravagance
and ruinous display, help make up
the “best society.” For that mystic communion
is not composed of the rich, but of the worthy;
and is “best” by its virtues, and not by its vices.
When Johnson, Burke, Goldsmith, Garrick, Reynolds,
and their friends, met at supper in Goldsmith's
rooms, where was the “best society” in
England? When George the Fourth outraged
humanity and decency in his treatment of Queen
Caroline, who was the first scoundrel in Europe?

Pause yet a moment, indignant friend. Whose
habits and principles would ruin this country as
rapidly as it has been made? Who are enamored
of a puerile imitation of foreign splendors? Who
strenuously endeavor to graft the questionable
points of Parisian society upon our own? Who
pass a few years in Europe and return skeptical
of republicanism and human improvement, longing
and sighing for more sharply emphasized
social distinctions? Who squander with profuse
recklessness the hard-earned fortunes of their
sires? Who diligently devote their time to nothing,
foolishly and wrongly supposing that a young
English nobleman has nothing to do? Who, in

fine, evince by their collective conduct, that they
regard their Americanism as a misfortune, and
are so the most deadly enemies of their country?
None but what our wag facetiously termed
“the best society.”

If the reader doubts, let him consider its practical
results in any great emporium of “best
society.” Marriage is there regarded as a luxury,
too expensive for any but the sons of rich men,
or fortunate young men. We once heard an
eminent divine assert, and only half in sport,
that the rate of living was advancing so incredibly,
that weddings in his experience were
perceptibly diminishing. The reasons might
have been many and various. But we all
acknowledge the fact. On the other hand,
and about the same time, a lovely damsel (ah!
Clorinda!) whose father was not wealthy, who
had no prospective means of support, who could
do nothing but polka to perfection, who literally
knew almost nothing, and who constantly shocked
every fairly intelligent person by the glaring
ignorance betrayed in her remarks, informed a
friend at one of the Saratoga balls, whither he

had made haste to meet “the best society,” that
there were “not more than three good matches
in society!” La Dame aux Camélias, Marie
Duplessis, was, to our fancy, a much more
feminine, and admirable, and moral, and human
person, than the adored Clorinda. And yet what
she said was the legitimate result of the state of
our fashionable society. It worships wealth, and
the pomp which wealth can purchase, more than
virtue, genius, or beauty. We may be told that
it has always been so in every country, and that
the fine society of all lands is as profuse and
flashy as our own. We deny it, flatly. Neither
English, nor French, nor Italian, nor German
society, is so unspeakably barren as that which
is technically called “society” here. In London,
and Paris, and Vienna, and Rome, all the really
eminent men and women help make up the
mass of society. A party is not a mere ball,
but it is a congress of the wit, beauty, and
fame of the capital. It is worth while to dress,
if you shall meet Macaulay, or Hallam, or Guizot,
or Thiers, or Landseer, or Delaroche,—Mrs. Norton,
the Misses Berry, Madame Recamier, and all
the brilliant women and famous foreigners. But
why should we desert the pleasant pages of those
men, and the recorded gossip of those women,
to be squeezed flat against a wall, while young
Doughface pours oyster-gravy down our shirtfront,
and Caroline Pettitoes wonders at “Mr.
Düsseldorf's” industry?

If intelligent people decline to go, you justly
remark, it is their own fault. Yes, but if they
stay away it is very certainly their great gain.
The elderly people are always neglected with
us, and nothing surprises intelligent strangers
more, than the tyrannical supremacy of Young
America. But we are not surprised at this neglect.
How can we be if we have our eyes open?
When Caroline Pettitoes retreats from the floor
to the sofa, and instead of a “polker” figures
at parties as a matron, do you suppose that
“tough old Jose' like ourselves, are going to
desert the young Caroline upon the floor, for
Madame Pettitoes upon the sofa? If the pretty
young Caroline, with youth, health, freshness, a
fine, budding form, and wreathed in a semi-transparent
haze of flounced and flowered gauze, is

so vapid that we prefer to accost her with our
eyes alone, and not with our tongues, is the
same Caroline married into a Madame Pettitoes,
and fanning herself upon a sofa,—no longer particularly
fresh, nor young, nor pretty, and no
longer budding but very fully blown,—likely
to be fascinating in conversation? We cannot
wonder that the whole connection of Pettitoes,
when advanced to the matron state, is entirely
neglected. Proper homage to age we can all
pay at home, to our parents and grandparents.
Proper respect for some persons is best preserved
by avoiding their neighborhood.

And what, think you, is the influence of this
extravagant expense and senseless show upon
these same young men and women? We can
easily discover. It saps their noble ambition,
assails their health, lowers their estimate of men
and their reverence for women, cherishes an
eager and aimless rivalry, weakens true feeling,
wipes away the bloom of true modesty, and induces
an ennui, a satiety, and a kind of dilettante
misanthropy, which is only the more monstrous
because it is undoubtedly real. You shall hear

young men of intelligence and cultivation, to
whom the unprecedented circumstances of this
country offer opportunities of a great and beneficent
career, complaining that they were born
within this blighted circle—regretting that they
were not bakers and tallow-chandlers, and under
no obligation to keep up appearances—deliberately
surrendering all the golden possibilities of
that Future which this country, beyond all others,
holds before them—sighing that they are not
rich enough to marry the girls they love, and
bitterly upbraiding fortune that they are not millionnaires—suffering
the vigor of their years to
exhale in idle wishes and pointless regrets—disgracing
their manhood by lying in wait behind
their “so gentlemanly” and “aristocratic” manners,
until they can pounce upon a “fortune” and
ensnare an heiress into matrimony: and so having
dragged their gifts, their horses of the sun,
into a service which shames out of them all
their native pride and power, they sink in the
mire, and their peers and emulators exclaim that
they have “made a good thing of it.”

Are these the processes by which a noble race

is made and perpetuated? At Mrs. Potiphar's
we heard several Pendennises longing for a similar
luxury, and announcing their firm purpose,
never to have wives nor houses, until they could
have them as splendid as jewelled Mrs. Potiphar,
and her palace, thirty feet front. Where were
their heads and their hearts, and their arms?
How looks this craven despondency, before the
stern virtues of the ages we call dark? When
a man is so voluntarily imbecile as to regret he
is not rich, if that is what he wants, before he
has struck a blow for wealth; or so dastardly
as to renounce the prospect of love, because, sitting
sighing, in velvet dressing-gown and slippers,
he does not see his way clear to ten thousand
a year; when young women coiffed à merveille,
of unexceptionable “style,” who, with or without
a prospective penny, secretly look down upon
honest women who struggle for a livelihood, like
noble and Christian beings, and, as such, are rewarded;
in whose society a man must forget
that he has ever read, thought or felt; who destroy
in the mind, the fair ideal of woman, which
the genius of art and poetry, and love, their
inspirer, has created; then it seems to us, it is
high time that the subject should be regarded
not as a matter of breaking butterflies upon the
wheel, but as a sad and sober question, in whose
solution, all fathers and mothers, and the state
itself, are interested. When keen observers, and
men of the world, from Europe, are amazed and
appalled at the giddy whirl and frenzied rush
of our society—a society singular in history, for
the exaggerated prominence it assigns to wealth,
irrespective of the talents that amassed it, they
and their possessor being usually hustled out of
sight—is it not quite time to ponder a little upon
the Court of Louis XIV., and the “merrie days”
of King Charles II.? Is it not clear that, if what
our good wag, with caustic irony, called “best
society,” were really such, every thoughtful man
would read upon Mrs. Potiphar's softly-tinted
walls, the terrible “mene, mene” of an imminent
destruction?

Venice in her purple prime of luxury, when
the famous law was passed, making all gondolas
black, that the nobles should not squander fortunes
upon them, was not more luxurious than

New York to-day. Our hotels have a superficial
splendor, derived from a profusion of gilt
and paint, wood and damask. Yet, in not one
of them can the traveller be so quietly comfortable
as in an English Inn, and nowhere in
New York can the stranger procure a dinner,
at once so neat and elegant, and economical, as
at scores of Cafés in Paris. The fever of display
has consumed comfort. A gondola plated with
gold was no easier than a black wooden one.
We could well spare a little gilt upon the walls,
for more cleanliness upon the public table; nor
is it worth while to cover the walls with mirrors
to reflect a want of comfort. One prefers a
wooden bench to a greasy velvet cushion, and
a sanded floor to a soiled and threadbare carpet.
An insipid uniformity is the Procrustes-bed,
upon which “society” is stretched. Every new
house is the counterpart of every other, with
the exception of more gilt, if the owner can
afford it. The interior arrangement, instead of
being characteristic, instead of revealing something
of the tastes and feelings of the owner, is
rigorously conformed to every other interior.
The same hollow and tame complaisance rules
in the intercourse of society. Who dares say
precisely what he thinks upon a great topic?
What youth ventures to say sharp things, of
slavery, for instance, at a polite dinner-table?
What girl dares wear curls, when Martelle prescribes
puffs or bandeaux? What specimen of
Young America dares have his trowsers loose or
wear straps to them? We want individuality,
heroism, and, if necessary, an uncompromising
persistence in difference.

This is the present state of parties. They
are wildly extravagant, full of senseless display;
they are avoided by the pleasant and intelligent,
and swarm with reckless regiments of “Brown's
men.” The ends of the earth contribute their
choicest products to the supper, and there is
every thing that wealth can purchase, and all
the spacious splendor that thirty feet front can
afford. They are hot, and crowded, and glaring.
There is a little weak scandal, venomous, not
witty, and a stream of weary platitude, mortifying
to every sensible person. Will any of
our Pendennis friends intermit their indignation

for a moment, and consider how many good
things they have said or heard during the season?
If Mr. Potiphar's eyes should chance to fall here,
will he reckon the amount of satisfaction and
enjoyment he derived from Mrs. Potiphar's ball,
and will that lady candidly confess what she
gained from it beside weariness and disgust?
What eloquent sermons we remember to have
heard in which the sins and the sinners of Babylon,
Jericho and Gomorrah were scathed with
holy indignation. The cloth is very hard upon
Cain, and completely routs the erring kings
of Judah. The Spanish Inquisition, too, gets
frightful knocks, and there is much eloquent
exhortation to preach the gospel in the interior
of Siam. Let it be preached there, and God
speed the word. But also let us have a text or
two in Broadway and the Avenue.

The best sermon ever preached upon society,
within our knowledge, is “Vanity Fair.” Is
the spirit of that story less true of New York
than of London? Probably we never see Amelia
at our parties, nor Lieutenant George Osborne,
nor good gawky Dobbin, nor Mrs. Rebecca Sharp

Crawley, nor old Steyne. We are very much
pained, of course, that any author should take
such dreary views of human nature. We, for
our parts, all go to Mrs. Potiphar's to refresh
our faith in men and women. Generosity, amiability,
a catholic charity, simplicity, taste, sense,
high cultivation, and intelligence, distinguish our
parties. The statesman seeks their stimulating
influence; the literary man, after the day's labour,
desires the repose of their elegant conversation;
the professional man and the merchant hurry
up from down town to shuffle off the coil of
heavy duty, and forget the drudgery of life in
the agreeable picture of its amenities and graces
presented by Mrs. Potiphar's ball. Is this account
of the matter, or “Vanity Fair,” the satire?
What are the prospects of any society of which
that tale is the true history?

There is a picture in the Luxembourg gallery
at Paris, “The Decadence of the Romans,” which
made the fame and fortune of Couture, the painter.
It represents an orgie in the court of a temple,
during the last days of Rome. A swarm of
revellers occupy the middle of the picture,

wreathed in elaborate intricacy of luxurious posture,
men and women intermingled; their faces,
in which the old Roman fire scarcely flickers,
brutalized with excess of every kind; their heads
of dishevelled hair bound with coronals of leaves,
while, from goblets of an antique grace, they
drain the fiery torrent which is destroying them.
Around the bacchanalian feast stand, lofty upon
pedestals, the statues of old Rome, looking with
marble calmness and the severity of a rebuke
beyond words upon the revellers. A youth of
boyish grace, with a wreath woven in his tangled
hair, and with red and drowsy eyes, sits listless
upon one pedestal, while upon another stands a
boy, insane with drunkenness, and proffering a
dripping goblet to the marble mouth of the statue.
In the corner of the picture, as if just quitting
the court—Rome finally departing—is a group
of Romans with care-worn brows, and hands
raised to their faces in melancholy meditation.
In the foreground of the picture, which is painted
with all the sumptuous splendor of Venetian art,
is a stately vase, around which hangs a festoon
of gorgeous flowers, its end dragging upon the
pavement. In the background, between the columns,
smiles the blue sky of Italy—the only
thing Italian not deteriorated by time. The
careful student of this picture, if he has been
long in Paris, is some day startled by detecting,
especially in the faces of the women represented,
a surprising likeness to the women of Paris, and
perceives, with a thrill of dismay, that the models
for this picture of decadent human nature are
furnished by the very city in which he lives.