Chapter V: Part 5

The order of the Cincinnati was to have been the nucleus of an American nobility. The tendencies of this society are revealed by the fact that primogeniture was its fundamental law. Nothing could have been more opposed to the spirit of the age, nor more at variance with the declaration of our independence, than the insertion of such a clause. This fact was discovered by the far-seeing eye of Washington, and the society was suppressed in the hope (shared by almost all contemporaries) that with new forms of government the nature of man would undergo a transformation and rise above such puerile ambitions.

Time has shown the fallacy of these dreams. All that has been accomplished is the displacement of the objective point; the desire, the mania for a handle to one's name is as prevalent as ever. Leave the centres of civilization and wander in the small towns and villages of our country. Every other man you meet is introduced as the Colonel or the Judge, and you will do well not to inquire too closely into the matter, nor to ask to see the title-deeds to such distinctions. On the other hand, to omit his prefix in addressing one of these local magnates, would be to offend him deeply. The women-folk were quick to borrow a little of this distinction, and in Washington to-day one is gravely presented to Mrs. Senator Smith or Mrs. Colonel Jones. The climax being reached by one aspiring female who styles herself on her visiting cards, "Mrs. Acting-Assistant-Paymaster Robinson." If by any chance it should occur to any one to ask her motive in sporting such an unwieldy handle, she would say that she did it "because one can't be going about explaining that one is not just ordinary Mrs. Robinson or Thompson, like the thousand others in town." A woman who cannot find an excuse for assuming such a prefix will sometime have recourse to another stratagem, to particularize an ordinary surname. She remembers that her husband, who ever since he was born has been known to everybody as Jim, is the proud possessor of the middle name Ivanhoe, or Pericles (probably the result of a romantic mother's reading); so one fine day the young couple bloom out as Mr. and Mrs. J. Pericles Sparks, to the amusement of their friends, their own satisfaction, and the hopeless confusion of their tradespeople.

Not long ago a Westerner, who went abroad with a travelling show, was received with enthusiasm in England because it was thought "The Honorable" which preceded his name on his cards implied that although an American he was somehow the son of an earl. As a matter of fact he owed this title to having sat, many years before in the Senate of a far-western State. He will cling to that "Honorable" and print it on his cards while life lasts. I was told the other day of an American carpet warrior who appeared at court function abroad decorated with every college badge, and football medal in his possession, to which he added at the last moment a brass trunk check, to complete the brilliancy of the effect. This latter decoration attracted the attention of the Heir Apparent, who inquired the meaning of the mystic "416" upon it. This would have been a "facer" to any but a true son of Uncle Sam. Nothing daunted, however, our "General" replied "That, Sir, is the number of pitched battles I have won."

I have my doubts as to the absolute veracity of this tale. But that the son of one of our generals, appeared not long ago at a public reception abroad, wearing his father's medals and decorations, is said to be true. Decorations on the Continent are official badges of distinction conferred and recognized by the different governments. An American who wears, out of his own country, an army or college badge which has no official existence, properly speaking, being recognized by no government, but which is made intentionally to look as much as possible like the "Legion d'Honneur," is deliberately imposing on the ignorance of foreigners, and is but little less of a pretentious idiot than the owners of the trunk check and the borrowed decorations.

There seems no end to the ways a little ambitious game can be played. One device much in favor is for the wife to attach her own family name to that of her husband by means of a hyphen. By this arrangement she does not entirely lose her individuality; as a result we have a splendid assortment of hybrid names, such as Van Cortland-Smith and Beekman-Brown. Be they never so incongruous these double-barrelled cognomens serve their purpose and raise ambitious mortals above the level of other Smiths and Browns. Finding that this arrangement works well in their own case, it is passed on to the next generation. There are no more Toms and Bills in these aspiring days. The little boys are all Cadwalladers or Carrolls. Their school-fellows, however, work sad havoc with these high-sounding titles and quickly abbreviate them into humble "Cad" or "Rol."

It is surprising to notice what a number of middle-aged gentlemen have blossomed out of late with decorations in their button-holes according to the foreign fashion. On inquiry I have discovered that these ornaments designate members of the G.A.R., the Loyal Legion, or some local Post, for the rosettes differ in form and color. When these gentlemen travel abroad, to reduce their waists or improve their minds, the effects on the hotel waiters and cabmen must be immense. They will be charged three times the ordinary tariff instead of only the double which is the stranger's usual fate at the hands of simple-minded foreigners. The satisfaction must be cheap, however, at that price.

Even our wise men and sages do not seem to have escaped the contagion. One sees professors and clergymen (who ought to set a better example) trailing half a dozen letters after their names, initials which to the initiated doubtless mean something, but which are also intended to fill the souls of the ignorant with envy. I can recall but one case of a foreign decoration being refused by a compatriot. He was a genius and we all know that geniuses are crazy. This gentleman had done something particularly gratifying to an Eastern potentate, who in return offered him one of his second-best orders. It was at once refused. When urged on him a second time our countryman lost his temper and answered, "If you want to give it to somebody, present it to my valet. He is most anxious to be decorated." And it was done!

It does not require a deeply meditative mind to discover the motives of ambitious struggles. The first and strongest illusion of the human mind is to believe that we are different from our fellows, and our natural impulse is to try and impress this belief upon others.

Pride of birth is but one of the manifestations of the universal weakness--invariably taking stronger and stronger hold of the people, who from the modest dimension of their income, or other untoward circumstances, can find no outward and visible form with which to dazzle the world. You will find that a desire to shine is the secret of most of the tips and presents that are given while travelling or visiting, for they can hardly be attributed to pure spontaneous generosity.

How many people does one meet who talk of their poor and unsuccessful relatives while omitting to mention rich and powerful connections? We are told that far from blaming such a tendency we are to admire it. That it is proper pride to put one's best foot forward and keep an offending member well out of sight, that the man who wears a rosette in the button- hole of his coat and has half the alphabet galloping after his name, is an honor to his family.

Far be it from me to deride this weakness in others, for in my heart I am persuaded that if I lived in China, nothing would please me more than to have my cap adorned with a coral button, while if fate had cast my life in the pleasant places of central Africa, a ring in my nose would doubtless have filled my soul with joy. The fact that I share this weakness does not, however, prevent my laughing at such folly in others.

No. 24--Changing Paris

Paris is beginning to show signs of the coming "Exhibition of 1900," and is in many ways going through a curious stage of transformation, socially as well as materially. The _Palais De l'Industrie_, familiar to all visitors here, as the home of the _Salons_, the Horse Shows, and a thousand gay _fetes_ and merry-makings, is being torn down to make way for the new avenue leading, with the bridge Alexander III., from the Champs Elysees to the Esplanade des Invalides. This thoroughfare with the gilded dome of Napoleon's tomb to close its perspective is intended to be the feature of the coming "show."

Curious irony of things in this world! The _Palais De l'Industrie_ was intended to be the one permanent building of the exhibition of 1854. An old "Journal" I often read tells how the writer saw the long line of gilded coaches (borrowed from Versailles for the occasion), eight horses apiece, led by footmen--horses and men blazing in embroidered trappings--leave the Tuileries and proceed at a walk to the great gateway of the now disappearing palace. Victoria and Albert who were on an official visit to the Emperor were the first to alight; then Eugenie in the radiance of her perfect beauty stepped from the coach (sad omen!) that fifty years before had taken Josephine in tears to Malmaison.

It may interest some ladies to know how an Empress was dressed on that spring morning forty-four years ago. She wore rose-colored silk with an over-dress (I think that is what it is called) of black lace flounces, immense hoops, and a black _Chantilly_ lace shawl. Her hair, a brilliant golden auburn, was dressed low on the temples, covering the ears, and hung down her back in a gold net almost to her waist; at the extreme back of her head was placed a black and rose-colored bonnet; open "flowing" sleeves showed her bare arms, one-buttoned, straw-colored gloves, and ruby bracelets; she carried a tiny rose-colored parasol not a foot in diameter.

How England's great sovereign was dressed the writer of the journal does not so well remember, for in those days Eugenie was the cynosure of all eyes, and people rarely looked at anything else when they could get a glimpse of her lovely face.

It appears, however, that the Queen sported an India shawl, hoops, and a green bonnet, which was not particularly becoming to her red face. She and Napoleon entered the building first; the Empress (who was in delicate health) was carried in an open chair, with Prince Albert walking at her side, a marvellously handsome couple to follow the two dowdy little sovereigns who preceded them. The writer had by bribery succeeded in getting places in an _entresol_ window under the archway, and was greatly impressed to see those four great ones laughing and joking together over Eugenie's trouble in getting her hoops into the narrow chair!

What changes have come to that laughing group! Two are dead, one dying in exile and disgrace; and it would be hard to find in the two rheumatic old ladies whom one sees pottering about the Riviera now, any trace of those smiling wives. In France it is as if a tidal wave had swept over Napoleon's court. Only the old palace stood severely back from the Champs Elysees, as if guarding its souvenirs. The pick of the mason has brought down the proud gateway which its imperial builder fondly imagined was to last for ages. The Tuileries preceded it into oblivion. The Alpha and Omega of that gorgeous pageant of the fifties vanished like a mirage!

It is not here alone one finds Paris changing. A railway is being brought along the quais with its depot at the Invalides. Another is to find its terminus opposite the Louvre, where the picturesque ruin of the Cour des Comptes has stood half-hidden by the trees since 1870. A line of electric cars crosses the Rond Point, in spite of the opposition of all the neighborhood, anxious to keep, at least that fine perspective free from such desecration. And, last but not least, there is every prospect of an immense system of elevated railways being inaugurated in connection with the coming world's fair. The direction of this kind of improvement is entirely in the hands of the Municipal Council, and that body has become (here in Paris) extremely radical, not to say communistic; and takes pleasure in annoying the inhabitants of the richer quarters of the city, under pretext of improvements and facilities of circulation.

It is easy to see how strong the feeling is against the aristocratic class. Nor is it much to be wondered at! The aristocracy seem to try to make themselves unpopular. They detest the republic, which has shorn them of their splendor, and do everything in their power (socially and diplomatically their power is still great) to interfere with and frustrate the plans of the government. Only last year they seized an opportunity at the funerals of the Duchesse d'Alencon and the Duc d'Aumale to make a royalist manifestation of the most pronounced character. The young Duchesse d'Orleans was publicly spoken of and treated as the "Queen of France;" at the private receptions given during her stay in Paris the same ceremonial was observed as if she had been really on the throne. The young Duke, her husband, was not present, being in exile as a pretender, but armorial bearings of the "reigning family," as their followers insist on calling them, were hung around the Madeleine and on the funeral-cars of both the illustrious dead.

The government is singularly lenient to the aristocrats. If a poor man cries "Long live the Commune!" in the street, he is arrested. The police, however, stood quietly by and let a group of the old nobility shout "Long live the Queen!" as the train containing the young Duchesse d'Orleans moved out of the station. The secret of this leniency toward the "pretenders" to the throne, is that they are very little feared. If it amuses a set of wealthy people to play at holding a court, the strong government of the republic cares not one jot. The Orleans family have never been popular in France, and the young pretender's marriage to an Austrian Archduchess last year has not improved matters.

It is the fashion in the conservative Faubourg St. Germain, to ridicule the President, his wife and their bourgeois surroundings, as forty years ago the parents of these aristocrats affected to despise the imperial _parvenus_. The swells amused themselves during the official visit of the Emperor and Empress of Russia last year (which was gall and wormwood to them) by exaggerating and repeating all the small slips in etiquette that the President, an intelligent, but simple-mannered gentleman, was supposed to have made during the sojourn of his imperial guests.

Both M. and Mme. Faure are extremely popular with the people, and are heartily cheered whenever they are seen in public. The President is the despair of the lovers of routine and etiquette, walking in and out of his Palais of the Elysee, like a private individual, and breaking all rules and regulations. He is fond of riding, and jogs off to the Bois of a morning with no escort, and often of an evening drops in at the theatres in a casual way. The other night at the Francais he suddenly appeared in the _foyer des artistes_ (a beautiful greenroom, hung with historical portraits of great actors and actresses, one of the prides of the theatre) in this informal manner. Mme. Bartet, who happened to be there alone at the time, was so impressed at such an unprecedented event that she fainted, and the President had to run for water and help revive her. The next day he sent the great actress a beautiful vase of Sevres china, full of water, in souvenir.

To a lover of old things and old ways any changes in the Paris he has known and loved are a sad trial. Henri Drumont, in his delightful _Mon Vieux Paris_, deplores this modern mania for reform which has done such good work in the new quarters but should, he thinks, respect the historic streets and shady squares.

One naturally feels that the sights familiar in youth lose by being transformed and doubts the necessity of such improvements.

The Rome of my childhood is no more! Half of Cairo was ruthlessly transformed in sixty-five into a hideous caricature of modern Paris. Milan has been remodelled, each city losing in charm as it gained in convenience.

So far Paris has held her own. The spirit of the city has not been lost, as in the other capitals. The fair metropolis of France, in spite of many transformations, still holds her admirers with a dominating sway. She pours out for them a strong elixir that once tasted takes the flavor out of existence in other cities and makes her adorers, when in exile, thirst for another draught of the subtle nectar.

No. 25--Contentment

As the result of certain ideal standards adopted among us when this country was still in long clothes, a time when the equality of man was the new "fad" of many nations, and the prizes of life first came within the reach of those fortunate or unscrupulous enough to seize them, it became the fashion (and has remained so down to our day) to teach every little boy attending a village school to look upon himself as a possible future President, and to assume that every girl was preparing herself for the position of first lady in the land. This is very well in theory, and practice has shown that, as Napoleon said, "Every private may carry a marshal's baton in his knapsack." Alongside of the good such incentive may produce, it is only fair, however, to consider also how much harm may lie in this way of presenting life to a child's mind.

As a first result of such tall talking we find in America, more than in any other country, an inclination among all classes to leave the surroundings where they were born and bend their energies to struggling out of the position in life occupied by their parents. There are not wanting theorists who hold that this is a quality in a nation, and that it leads to great results. A proposition open to discussion.

It is doubtless satisfactory to designate first magistrates who have raised themselves from humble beginnings to that proud position, and there are times when it is proper to recall such achievements to the rising generation. But as youth is proverbially over-confident it might also be well to point out, without danger of discouraging our sanguine youngsters, that for one who has succeeded, about ten million confident American youths, full of ambition and lofty aims, have been obliged to content themselves with being honest men in humble positions, even as their fathers before them. A sad humiliation, I grant you, for a self- respecting citizen, to end life just where his father did; often the case, nevertheless, in this hard world, where so many fine qualities go unappreciated,--no societies having as yet been formed to seek out "mute, inglorious Miltons," and ask to crown them!

To descend abruptly from the sublime, to very near the ridiculous,--I had need last summer of a boy to go with a lady on a trap and help about the stable. So I applied to a friend's coachman, a hard-working Englishman, who was delighted to get the place for his nephew--an American-born boy--the child of a sister, in great need. As the boy's clothes were hardly presentable, a simple livery was made for him; from that moment he pined, and finally announced he was going to leave. In answer to my surprised inquiries, I discovered that a friend of his from the same tenement-house in which he had lived in New York had appeared in the village, and sooner than be seen in livery by his play-fellow he preferred abandoning his good place, the chance of being of aid to his mother, and learning an honorable way to earn his living. Remonstrances were in vain; to the wrath of his uncle, he departed. The boy had, at his school, heard so much about everybody being born equal and every American being a gentleman by right of inheritance, that he had taken himself seriously, and despised a position his uncle was proud to hold, preferring elegant leisure in his native tenement-house to the humiliation of a livery.

When at college I had rooms in a neat cottage owned by an American family. The father was a butcher, as were his sons. The only daughter was exceedingly pretty. The hard-worked mother conceived high hopes for this favorite child. She was sent to a boarding-school, from which she returned entirely unsettled for life, having learned little except to be ashamed of her parents and to play on the piano. One of these instruments of torture was bought, and a room fitted up as a parlor for the daughter's use. As the family were fairly well-to-do, she was allowed to dress out of all keeping with her parents' position, and, egged on by her mother, tried her best to marry a rich "student." Failing in this, she became discontented, unhappy, and finally there was a scandal, this poor victim of a false ambition going to swell the vast tide of a city's vice. With a sensible education, based on the idea that her father's trade was honorable and that her mission in life was to aid her mother in the daily work until she might marry and go to her husband, prepared by experience to cook his dinner and keep his house clean, and finally bring up her children to be honest men and women, this girl would have found a happy future waiting for her, and have been of some good in her humble way.

It is useless to multiply illustrations. One has but to look about him in this unsettled country of ours. The other day in front of my door the perennial ditch was being dug for some gas-pipe or other. Two of the gentlemen who had consented to do this labor wore frock-coats and top hats--or what had once been those articles of attire--instead of comfortable and appropriate overalls. Why? Because, like the stable- boy, to have worn any distinctive dress would have been in their minds to stamp themselves as belonging to an inferior class, and so interfered with their chances of representing this country later at the Court of St. James, or presiding over the Senate,--positions (to judge by their criticism of the present incumbents) they feel no doubt as to their ability to fill.

The same spirit pervades every trade. The youth who shaves me is not a barber; he has only accepted this position until he has time to do something better. The waiter who brings me my chop at a down-town restaurant would resign his place if he were requested to shave his flowing mustache, and is secretly studying law. I lose all patience with my countrymen as I think over it! Surely we are not such a race of snobs as not to recognize that a good barber is more to be respected than a poor lawyer; that, as a French saying goes, _Il n'y a pas de sot metier_. It is only the fool who is ashamed of his trade.

But enough of preaching. I had intended--when I took up my pen to-day--to write on quite another form of this modern folly, this eternal struggle upward into circles for which the struggler is fitted neither by his birth nor his education; the above was to have been but a preface to the matter I had in mind, viz., "social climbers," those scourges of modern society, the people whom no rebuffs will discourage and no cold shoulder chill, whose efforts have done so much to make our countrymen a byword abroad.

As many philosophers teach that trouble only is positive, happiness being merely relative; that in any case trouble is pretty equally distributed among the different conditions of mankind; that, excepting the destitute and physically afflicted, all God's creatures have a share of joy in their lives, would it not be more logical, as well as more conducive to the general good, if a little more were done to make the young contented with their lot in life, instead of constantly suggesting to a race already prone to be unsettled, that nothing short of the top is worthy of an American citizen?

No. 26--The Climber

That form of misplaced ambition, which is the subject of the preceding chapter, can only be regarded seriously when it occurs among simple and sincere people, who, however derided, honestly believe that they are doing their duty to themselves and their families when they move heaven and earth to rise a few steps in the world. The moment we find ambition taking a purely social form, it becomes ridiculous. The aim is so paltry in comparison with the effort, and so out of proportion with the energy- exerted to attain it, that one can only laugh and wonder! Unfortunately, signs of this puerile spirit (peculiar to the last quarter of the nineteenth century) can be seen on all hands and in almost every society.

That any man or woman should make it the unique aim and object of existence to get into a certain "set," not from any hope of profit or benefit, nor from the belief that it is composed of brilliant and amusing people, but simply because it passes for being exclusive and difficult of access, does at first seem incredible.

That humble young painters or singers should long to know personally the great lights of their professions, and should strive to be accepted among them is easily understood, since the aspirants can reap but benefit, present and future, from such companionship. That a rising politician should deem it all-important to be on friendly terms with the "bosses" is not astonishing, for those magnates have it in their power to make or mar his fortune. But in a _milieu_ as fluctuating as any social circle must necessarily be, shading off on all sides and changing as constantly as light on water, the end can never be considered as achieved or the goal attained.

Neither does any particular result accompany success, more substantial than the moral one which lies in self-congratulation. That, however, is enough for a climber if she is bitten with the "ascending" madness. (I say "she," because this form of ambition is more frequent among women, although by no means unknown to the sterner sex.)

It amuses me vastly to sit in my corner and watch one of these _fin-de- siecle_ diplomatists work out her little problem. She generally comes plunging into our city from outside, hot for conquest, making acquaintances right and left, indiscriminately; thus falling an easy prey to the wolves that prowl around the edges of society, waiting for just such lambs to devour. Her first entertainments are worth attending for she has ingeniously contrived to get together all the people she should have left out, and failed to attract the social lights and powers of the moment. If she be a quick-witted lady, she soon sees the error of her ways and begins a process of "weeding"--as difficult as it is unwise, each rejected "weed" instantly becoming an enemy for life, not to speak of the risk she, in her ignorance, runs of mistaking for "detrimentals" the _fines fleurs_ of the worldly parterre. Ah! the way of the Climber is hard; she now begins to see that her path is not strewn with flowers.

One tactful person of this kind, whose gradual "unfolding" was watched with much amusement and wonder by her acquaintances, avoided all these errors by going in early for a "dear friend." Having, after mature reflection, chosen her guide among the most exclusive of the young matrons, she proceeded quietly to pay her court _en regle_. Flattering little notes, boxes of candy, and bunches of flowers were among the forms her devotion took. As a natural result, these two ladies became inseparable, and the most hermetically sealed doors opened before the new arrival.

A talent for music or acting is another aid. A few years ago an entire family were floated into the desired haven on the waves of the sister's voice, and one young couple achieved success by the husband's aptitude for games and sports. In the latter case it was the man of the family who did the work, dragging his wife up after him. A polo pony is hardly one's idea of a battle-horse, but in this case it bore its rider on to success.

Once climbers have succeeded in installing themselves in the stronghold of their ambitions, they become more exclusive than their new friends ever dreamed of being, and it tries one's self-restraint to hear these new arrivals deploring "the levelling tendencies of the age," or wondering "how nice people can be beginning to call on those horrid So- and-Sos. Their father sold shoes, you know." This ultra-exclusiveness is not to be wondered at. The only attraction the circle they have just entered has for the climbers is its exclusiveness, and they do not intend that it shall lose its market value in their hands. Like Baudelaire, they believe that "it is only the small number saved that makes the charm of Paradise." Having spent hard cash in this investment, they have every intention of getting their money's worth.

In order to give outsiders a vivid impression of the footing on which they stand with the great of the world, all the women they have just met become Nellys and Jennys, and all the men Dicks and Freds--behind their backs, _bien entendu_--for Mrs. "Newcome" has not yet reached that point of intimacy which warrants using such abbreviations directly to the owners.

Another amiable weakness common to the climber is that of knowing everybody. No name can be mentioned at home or abroad but Parvenu happens to be on the most intimate terms with the owner, and when he is conversing, great names drop out of his mouth as plentifully as did the pearls from the pretty lips of the girl in the fairy story. All the world knows how such a gentleman, being asked on his return from the East if he had seen "the Dardanelles," answered, "Oh, dear, yes! I dined with them several times!" thus settling satisfactorily his standing in the Orient!

Climbing, like every other habit, soon takes possession of the whole nature. To abstain from it is torture. Napoleon, we are told, found it impossible to rest contented on his successes, but was impelled onward by a force stronger than his volition. In some such spirit the ambitious souls here referred to, after "the Conquest of America" and the discovery that the fruit of their struggles was not worth very much, victory having brought the inevitable satiety in its wake, sail away in search of new fields of adventure. They have long ago left behind the friends and acquaintances of their childhood. Relations they apparently have none, which accounts for the curious phenomenon that a parvenu is never in mourning. As no friendships bind them to their new circle, the ties are easily loosened. Why should they care for one city more than for another, unless it offer more of the sport they love? This continent has become tame, since there is no longer any struggle, while over the sea vast hunting grounds and game worthy of their powder, form an irresistible temptation--old and exclusive societies to be besieged, and contests to be waged compared to which their American experiences are but light skirmishes. As the polo pony is supposed to pant for the fray, so the hearts of social conquerors warm within them at the prospect of more brilliant victories.

The pleasure of following them on their hunting parties abroad will have to be deferred, so vast is the subject, so full of thrilling adventure and, alas! also of humiliating defeat.

No. 27--The Last of the Dandies

So completely has the dandy disappeared from among us, that even the word has an old-time look (as if it had strayed out of some half-forgotten novel or "keepsake"), raising in our minds the picture of a slender, clean-shaven youth, in very tight unmentionables strapped under his feet, a dark green frock-coat with a collar up to the ears and a stock whose folds cover his chest, butter-colored gloves, and a hat--oh! a hat that would collect a crowd in two minutes in any neighborhood! A gold-headed stick, and a quizzing glass, with a black ribbon an inch wide, complete the toilet. In such a rig did the swells of the last generation stroll down Pall Mall or drive their tilburys in the Bois.

The recent illness of the Prince de Sagan has made a strange and sad impression in many circles in Paris, for he has always been a favorite, and is the last surviving type of a now extinct species. He is the last Dandy! No understudy will be found to fill his role--the dude and the swell are whole generations away from the dandy, of which they are but feeble reflections--the comedy will have to be continued now, without its leading gentleman. With his head of silvery hair, his eye-glass and his wonderful waistcoats, he held the first place in the "high life" of the French capital.

No first night or ball was complete without him, Sagan. The very mention of his name in their articles must have kept the wolf from the door of needy reporters. No _debutante_, social or theatrical, felt sure of her success until it had received the hall-mark of his approval. When he assisted at a dress rehearsal, the actors and the managers paid him more attention than Sarcey or Sardou, for he was known to be the real arbiter of their fate. His word was law, the world bowed before it as before the will of an autocrat. Mature matrons received his dictates with the same reverence that the Old Guard evinced for Napoleon's orders. Had he not led them on to victory in their youth?

On the boulevards or at a race-course, he was the one person always known by sight and pointed out. "There goes Sagan!" He had become an institution. One does not know exactly how or why he achieved the position, which made him the most followed, flattered, and copied man of his day. It certainly was unique!

The Prince of Sagan is descended from Maurice de Saxe (the natural son of the King of Saxony and Aurora of Koenigsmark), who in his day shone brilliantly at the French court and was so madly loved by Adrienne Lecouvreur. From his great ancestor, Sagan inherited the title of Grand Duke Of Courland (the estates have been absorbed into a neighboring empire). Nevertheless, he is still an R.H., and when crowned heads visit Paris they dine with him and receive him on a footing of equality. He married a great fortune, and the daughter of the banker Selliere. Their house on the Esplanade des Invalides has been for years the centre of aristocratic life in Paris; not the most exclusive circle, but certainly the gayest of this gay capital, and from the days of Louis Philippe he has given the keynote to the fast set.

Oddly enough, he has always been a great favorite with the lower classes (a popularity shared by all the famous dandies of history). The people appear to find in them the personification of all aspirations toward the elegant and the ideal. Alcibiades, Buckingham, the Duc de Richelieu, Lord Seymour, Comte d'Orsay, Brummel, Grammont-Caderousse, shared this favor, and have remained legendary characters, to whom their disdain for everything vulgar, their worship of their own persons, and many costly follies gave an ephemeral empire. Their power was the more arbitrary and despotic in that it was only nominal and undefined, allowing them to rule over the fashions, the tastes, and the pastimes of their contemporaries with undivided sway, making them envied, obeyed, loved, but rarely overthrown.

It has been asserted by some writers that dandies are necessary and useful to a nation (Thackeray admired them and pointed out that they have a most difficult and delicate role to play, hence their rarity), and that these butterflies, as one finds them in the novels of that day, the de Marsys, the Pelhams, the Maxime de Trailles, are indispensable to the perfection of society. It is a great misfortune to a country to have no dandies, those supreme virtuosos of taste and distinction. Germany, which glories in Mozart and Kant, Goethe and Humboldt, the country of deep thinkers and brave soldiers, never had a great dandy, and so has remained behind England or France in all that constitutes the graceful side of life, the refinements of social intercourse, and the art of living. France will perceive too late, after he has disappeared, the loss she has sustained when this Prince, Grand Seigneur, has ceased to embellish by his presence her race-courses and "first nights." A reputation like his cannot be improvised in a moment, and he has no pupils.

Never did the aristocracy of a country stand in greater need of such a representation, than in these days of tramcars and "fixed-price" restaurants. An entire "art" dies with him. It has been whispered that he has not entirely justified his reputation, that the accounts of his exploits as a _haut viveur_ have gained in the telling. Nevertheless he dominated an epoch, rising above the tumultuous and levelling society of his day, a tardy Don Quixote, of the knighthood of pleasures, _fetes_, loves and prodigalities, which are no longer of our time. His great name, his grand manner, his elderly graces, his serene carelessness, made him a being by himself. No one will succeed this master of departed elegances. If he does not recover from his attack, if the paralysis does not leave that poor brain, worn out with doing nothing, we can honestly say that he is the last of his kind.

An original and independent thinker has asserted that civilizations, societies, empires, and republics go down to posterity typified for the admiration of mankind, each under the form of some hero. Emerson would have given a place in his Pantheon to Sagan. For it is he who sustained the traditions and became the type of that distinguished and frivolous society, which judged that serious things were of no importance, enthusiasm a waste of time, literature a bore; that nothing was interesting and worthy of occupying their attention except the elegant distractions that helped to pass their days-and nights! He had the merit (?) in these days of the practical and the commonplace, of preserving in his gracious person all the charming uselessness of a courtier in a country where there was no longer a court.

What a strange sight it would be if this departing dandy could, before he leaves for ever the theatre of so many triumphs, take his place at some street corner, and review the shades of the companions his long life had thrown him with, the endless procession of departed belles and beaux, who, in their youth, had, under his rule, helped to dictate the fashions and lead the sports of a world.

No. 28--A Nation on the Wing

On being taken the other day through a large and costly residence, with the thoroughness that only the owner of a new house has the cruelty to inflict on his victims, not allowing them to pass a closet or an electric bell without having its particular use and convenience explained, forcing them to look up coal-slides, and down air-shafts and to visit every secret place, from the cellar to the fire-escape, I noticed that a peculiar arrangement of the rooms repeated itself on each floor, and several times on a floor. I remarked it to my host.

"You observe it," he said, with a blush of pride, "it is my wife's idea! The truth is, my daughters are of a marrying age, and my sons starting out for themselves; this house will soon be much too big for two old people to live in alone. We have planned it so that at any time it can be changed into an apartment house at a nominal expense. It is even wired and plumbed with that end in view!"

This answer positively took my breath away. I looked at my host in amazement. It was hard to believe that a man past middle age, who after years of hardest toil could afford to put half a million into a house for himself and his children, and store it with beautiful things, would have the courage to look so far into the future as to see all his work undone, his home turned to another use and himself and his wife afloat in the world without a roof over their wealthy old heads.

Surely this was the Spirit of the Age in its purest expression, the more strikingly so that he seemed to feel pride rather than anything else in his ingenious combination.

He liked the city he had built in well enough now, but nothing proved to him that he would like it later. He and his wife had lived in twenty cities since they began their brave fight with Fortune, far away in a little Eastern town. They had since changed their abode with each ascending rung of the ladder of success, and beyond a faded daguerreotype or two of their children and a few modest pieces of jewelry, stored away in cotton, it is doubtful if they owned a single object belonging to their early life.

Another case occurs to me. Near the village where I pass my summers, there lived an elderly, childless couple on a splendid estate combining everything a fastidious taste could demand. One fine morning this place was sold, the important library divided between the village and their native city, the furniture sold or given away,--everything went; at the end the things no one wanted were made into a bon-fire and burned.

A neighbor asking why all this was being done was told by the lady, "We were tired of it all and have decided to be 'Bohemians' for the rest of our lives." This couple are now wandering about Europe and half a dozen trunks contain their belongings.

These are, of course, extreme cases and must be taken for what they are worth; nevertheless they are straws showing which way the wind blows, signs of the times that he who runs may read. I do not run, but I often saunter up our principal avenue, and always find myself wondering what will be the future of the splendid residences that grace that thoroughfare as it nears the Park; the ascending tide of trade is already circling round them and each year sees one or more crumble away and disappear.

The finer buildings may remain, turned into clubs or restaurants, but the greater part of the newer ones are so ill-adapted to any other use than that for which they are built that their future seems obscure.

That fashion will flit away from its present haunts there can be little doubt; the city below the Park is sure to be given up to business, and even the fine frontage on that green space will sooner or later be occupied by hotels, if not stores; and he who builds with any belief in the permanency of his surroundings must indeed be of a hopeful disposition.

A good lady occupying a delightful corner on this same avenue, opposite a one-story florist's shop, said:

"I shall remain here until they build across the way; then I suppose I shall have to move."

So after all the man who is contented to live in a future apartment house, may not be so very far wrong.

A case of the opposite kind is that of a great millionaire, who, dying, left his house and its collections to his eldest son and his grandson after him, on the condition that they should continue to live in it.

Here was an attempt to keep together a home with its memories and associations. What has been the result? The street that was a charming centre for residences twenty years ago has become a "slum;" the unfortunate heirs find themselves with a house on their hands that they cannot live in and are forbidden to rent or sell. As a final result the will must in all probability be broken and the matter ended.

Of course the reason for a great deal of this is the phenomenal growth of our larger cities. Hundreds of families who would gladly remain in their old homes are fairly pushed out of them by the growth of business.

Everything has its limits and a time must come when our cities will cease to expand or when centres will be formed as in London or Paris, where generations may succeed each other in the same homes. So far, I see no indications of any such crystallization in this our big city; we seem to be condemned like the "Wandering Jew" or poor little "Joe" to be perpetually "moving on."

At a dinner of young people not long ago a Frenchman visiting our country, expressed his surprise on hearing a girl speak of "not remembering the house she was born in." Piqued by his manner the young lady answered:

"We are twenty-four at this table. I do not believe there is one person here living in the house in which he or she was born." This assertion raised a murmur of dissent around the table; on a census being taken it proved, however, to be true.

How can one expect, under circumstances like these, to find any great respect among young people for home life or the conservative side of existence? They are born as it were on the wing, and on the wing will they live.

The conditions of life in this country, although contributing largely to such a state of affairs, must not be held, however, entirely responsible. Underlying our civilization and culture, there is still strong in us a wild nomadic strain inherited from a thousand generations of wandering ancestors, which breaks out so soon as man is freed from the restraint incumbent on bread-winning for his family. The moment there is wealth or even a modest income insured, comes the inclination to cut loose from the dull routine of business and duty, returning instinctively to the migratory habits of primitive man.

We are not the only nation that has given itself up to globe-trotting; it is strong in the English, in spite of their conservative education, and it is surprising to see the number of formerly stay-at-home French and Germans one meets wandering in foreign lands.

In 1855, a Londoner advertised the plan he had conceived of taking some people over to visit the International Exhibition in Paris. For a fixed sum paid in advance he offered to provide everything and act as courier to the party, and succeeded with the greatest difficulty in getting together ten people. From this modest beginning has grown the vast undertaking that to-day covers the globe with tourists, from the frozen seas where they "do" the midnight sun, to the deserts three thousand miles up the Nile.

As I was returning a couple of years ago _via_ Vienna from Constantinople, the train was filled with a party of our compatriots conducted by an agency of this kind--simple people of small means who, twenty years ago, would as soon have thought of leaving their homes for a trip in the East as they would of starting off in balloons en route for the inter-stellar spaces.

I doubted at the time as to the amount of information and appreciation they brought to bear on their travels, so I took occasion to draw one of the thin, unsmiling women into conversation, asking her where they intended stopping next.

"At Buda-Pesth," she answered. I said in some amusement:

"But that was Buda-Pesth we visited so carefully yesterday."

"Oh, was it," she replied, without any visible change on her face, "I thought we had not got there yet." Apparently it was enough for her to be travelling; the rest was of little importance. Later in the day, when asked if she had visited a certain old city in Germany, she told me she had but would never go there again: "They gave us such poor coffee at the hotel." Again later in speaking to her husband, who seemed a trifle vague as to whether he had seen Nuremberg or not, she said:

"Why, you remember it very well; it was there you bought those nice overshoes!"

All of which left me with some doubts in my mind as to the cultivating influences of foreign travel on their minds.

You cannot change a leopard's spots, neither can you alter the nature of a race, and one of the strongest characteristics of the Anglo-Saxon, is the nomadic instinct. How often one hears people say:

"I am not going to sit at home and take care of my furniture. I want to see something of the world before I am too old." Lately, a sprightly maiden of uncertain years, just returned from a long trip abroad, was asked if she intended now to settle down.

"Settle down, indeed! I'm a butterfly and I never expect to settle down."

There is certainly food here for reflection. Why should we be more inclined to wander than our neighbors? Perhaps it is in a measure due to our nervous, restless temperament, which is itself the result of our climate; but whatever the cause is, inability to remain long in one place is having a most unfortunate influence on our social life. When everyone is on the move or longing to be, it becomes difficult to form any but the most superficial ties; strong friendships become impossible, the most intimate family relations are loosened.

If one were of a speculative frame of mind and chose to take as the basis for a calculation the increase in tourists between 1855, when the ten pioneers started for Paris, and the number "personally conducted" over land and sea to-day, and then glance forward at what the future will be if this ratio of increase is maintained the result would be something too awful for words. For if ten have become a million in forty years, what will be the total in 1955? Nothing less than entire nations given over to sight-seeing, passing their lives and incomes in rushing aimlessly about.

If the facilities of communication increase as they undoubtedly will with the demand, the prospect becomes nearer the idea of a "Walpurgis Night" than anything else. For the earth and the sea will be covered and the air filled with every form of whirling, flying, plunging device to get men quickly from one place to another.

Every human being on the globe will be flying South for the cold months and North for the hot season.

As personally conducted tours have been so satisfactory, agencies will be started to lead us through all the stages of existence. Parents will subscribe on the birth of their children to have them personally conducted through life and everything explained as it is done at present in the galleries abroad; food, lodging and reading matter, husbands and wives will be provided by contract, to be taken back and changed if unsatisfactory, as the big stores do with their goods. Delightful prospect! Homes will become superfluous, parents and children will only meet when their "tours" happen to cross each other. Our great-grandchildren will float through life freed from every responsibility and more perfectly independent than even that delightful dreamer, Bellamy, ventured to predict.

No. 29--Husks

Among the Protestants driven from France by that astute and liberal-minded sovereign Louis XIV., were a colony of weavers, who as all the world knows, settled at Spitalfields in England, where their descendants weave silk to this day.

On their arrival in Great Britain, before the looms could be set up and a market found for their industry, the exiles were reduced to the last extremity of destitution and hunger. Looking about them for anything that could be utilized for food, they discovered that the owners of English slaughter-houses threw away as worthless, the tails of the cattle they killed. Like all the poor in France, these wanderers were excellent cooks, and knew that at home such caudal appendages were highly valued for the tenderness and flavor of the meat. To the amazement and disgust of the English villagers the new arrivals proceeded to collect this "refuse" and carry it home for food. As the first principle of French culinary art is the _pot-au-feu_, the tails were mostly converted into soup, on which the exiles thrived and feasted.