There is no better old saw in existence than that
comparisons are odious; they are not only odious,
but they are nearly if not quite impossible. For instance,
if we compare a dinner in London with a dinner in New
York, we must say, Whose dinner? What dinner? If
we compare New York with Paris, we must say, What
Paris? Shall we take the old Catholic aristocracy of the
Faubourg St. Germain, or the upstart social spheres of
the Faubourg St. Honoré and the Chaussée d'Antin?
Or shall we take Tout Paris, with its thousand ramifications,
with its literary and artistic salons, the Tout Paris
mondain, the Tout Paris artiste, the Tout Paris des
Premières, and all the rest of that heterogeneous crowd,
any fragment of which could swallow up the "four
hundred," and all its works?
Shall we attempt to compare New York or Washington
with London, with its four millions, its Prince of Wales
set, its old and sober aristocracy of cultivated people,
whose ideas of refinement, culture, and of all the traditions
of good society date back a thousand years?
Would it be fair, either, to attempt to say which part of
this vast congeries should be taken as the sample end,
and which part of America with its new civilization should
be compared with any or all of these?
Therefore any thoughts which follow must be merely
apologized for, as the rapid observations of a traveller,
who, in seeing many countries, has loved her own the
best, and who puts down these fleeting impressions,
merely with a hope to benefit her own, even if sometimes
criticising it.
Twenty years ago, Justin McCarthy, than whom there
has been no better international critic, wrote an immortal
paper called, "English and American Women Compared."
It was perhaps the most complimentary, and
we are therefore bound to say the fairest, description of
our women ever given to the world. It came at a time
when the American girl was being served up by Ouida,
the American senator by Anthony Trollope, and the
American divorcée by Victorien Sardou, in "L'Oncle
Sam." There was never a moment when the American
needed a friend more.
In that gentle, yet pungent paper, Mr. McCarthy refers
to our extravagance, our love of display, our superficial
criticisms of the merits of English literary women,
judged from the standpoint of dress, and of a singular
underlying snobbery which he observed in a few, who
wished that the days of titles and of aristocratic customs
could come back to the land where Thomas Jefferson
tied his horse to the Capitol palings, when he went up to
take the Presidential oath. Since that paper was written
what a flood of prosperity has deluged the land; what a
stride has been made in all the arts of entertaining!
What houses we possess; what dinners we give!
What would Horace Walpole say, could he see the
collections of some of our really poor people, not to
mention those of our billionnaires? Should he go out to
dinner in New York, the master of Strawberry Hill and
the first great collector could see more curious old furniture,
more hawthorn vases, more antique teapots, more
rare silver, and more chiffons than he had ever dreamed
of; he could see the power which a young, vigorous
nation possesses when it takes a kangaroo trick of leaping
backward into antiquity, or forward into strange
countries, and what it can bring home from its constant
globe-trotting, in exchange for some of its own silver
and gold. He would also see the power which art has
possessed over a nation so suddenly rich that one reads
with alarm the axiom of Taine, "When a nation has
reached its highest point of prosperity, and begins to decay,
then blossoms the consummate flower of art."
We need not go so far back as Horace Walpole; it
even astonishes the collector of last year to find that he
must come to New York to buy back his Japanese
bronzes, and his Capo di Monte, his Majolica and peach-blow
vase. We may say that we have the oldest of arts,
that of entertaining, wrested from the hands of the oldest
of nations, and placed almost recklessly in the hands of
the youngest,—as one would take a delicate musical instrument
from the hands of a master and put it in the
hands of a child. What wonder if in the first essay
some chords are missed, some discords struck? Then
we must remember that modern life is passing, slowly
but decidedly, through a great revolution, now nearly
achieved. The relation of equality is gradually eclipsing
every other,—that of inequality, where it does survive,
taking on its least noble form, as most things do in their
decay. In Europe there is still deference to title,
although the real power of feudalism was broken by
Louis XI. Its shadow remains even in republican
France, where if a man has not a title he is apt to buy or
to steal one. On this side of the Atlantic there is a
deference paid to wealth, however obtained. This is a
much greater strain upon character, a more vulgar form
of snobbery than the reverence for title; for a title
means that sometime, no matter how long ago, some one
lived nobly and won his spurs.
We may therefore assume that the great necromancer
Prosperity, with his wand, luxury, has suddenly placed
our new nation, if not on a footing with the old, certainly
as a new knight in the field, whose prowess deserves that
he should be mentioned. Or, to change the metaphor,
we can imagine some spread-eagle orator comparing us
to a David who with his smooth stones from the brook,
dug up in California and Nevada, is giving all modern
Goliaths a crack in the forehead. When we come to
make a comparison, however, let us narrow this down to
the giving of a dinner in London, in distinction to giving
a dinner in any city in America, and see what our giant
can do.
London possesses a regular system of society, a social
citadel, around which rally those whose birth, title, and
character are all well-known. It is conscious of an identity
of interest, which compacts its members, with the
force of cement, into a single corporation.
The queen and her drawing-room, the Prince of Wales
and his set, the royal family, the nobility and gentry,
what is called the aristocracy form a core to this apple,
and this central idea goes through all its juices.
Think what it must mean to a man to read that he is
descended from Harry Hotspur, Bolingbroke, Clarendon,
Sidney, Spenser, Cecil. Imagine what it must have been
to have known the men who daily gathered around the
tables of the famous dinner-givers. Imagine what the
dinners at Holland House were, and then compare
such a dinner with one which any American could give.
And yet, improbable as it may seem, the American dinner
might be the more amusing. The American dinner
would have far more flowers; it would be in a brighter
room; it would be more "talky," perhaps,—but it could
not be so well worth going to. In England, in the
greater as well as in the simpler houses, there is a respect
for intellect, for intelligence, that we have not. It is the
fashion to invite the man or the woman who has done
something to meet the most worshipful company, and
the young countess just beginning to entertain would receive
from her grandmother, who entertained Lord
Byron, this advice, "My dear, always have a literary
man, or an artist in your set."
The humblest literary man who has done anything
well is immediately sought out and is asked to dinner;
and the artist of merit, in music, painting, architecture,
literature, is sure of recognition in London. One is
almost always sure to see, at a grand dinner in London,
some quiet elderly woman, who receives the attention of
the most distinguished guests, and one learns that
she is Mrs. So-and-So, who has written a story, or a
few hymns.
In this respect for the best part of us, our brains,
the London dinner-giver has shown his thousand years of
civilization; he is playing the harp like a master.
To return for a moment to the criticism of Justin
McCarthy. He says in it, that while he admired the
American taste in dress, he could not admire a certain
confusion of mind, by which an otherwise kindly and
well-informed American woman misjudged a person who
preferred to go plain, or shabby, if you will. In fact, he
stood up for the right which every English woman will
claim as her own, "to be dowdy," if she will. The
Queen has taught her this. While the Princess of Wales,
the younger daughters of the Queen, and much of the
fashion of London dresses itself in Paris, and is consequently
very smart, there is still a class who look down
on clothes and consider them a small matter. Perhaps
that is the reason why such stringent regulations are laid
down for the court dress.
Magnificent, stately, and well-ordered, are the dinners
of London,—a countess at the head of the table, a
footman behind each chair, in great houses a very fine
dinner, and splendid pieces of plate, some old china,
pictures on the wall from the pencils of Rembrandt,
Rubens, Van Dyck, Gainsborough, and Sir Joshua.
Sweet, low-voiced, and well-bred are the women, with
beautiful necks, and shoulders, and fine heads. The
men are they who are doing the work of the world in the
House of Lords, the House of Commons, in India, in
Egypt, in the Soudan; there is a multiplicity of topics
of conversation. No English stiffness exists at the dinner,
and there is always present some literary man or
woman, some famous artist as the pièce de resistance;
such are the dinners of London.
The luncheons are simpler, and here one is sure to
meet men advanced in thought, and women of ideas,
and there is no question as to the rent-roll. Wealth has
absolutely nothing to do with society success in London.
We might mention many a literary and artistic salon,
over which charming and fascinating, young and fashionable
women preside with the mingled grace, which adds
a beauty and a meaning to Emerson's famous mot that
"fashion is funded politeness." We might mention
many a literary or artistic man or woman of London,
who is the favoured friend of these great ladies, who
would, if an American, never be asked to a luncheon at
Newport, or admitted to a ball at Delmonico's, because
he was not fashionable. It would not occur to the gay
entertainers to think that such a person would be
desirable.
Paris, as the land of the mot and the epigram, has
always had a great attraction for literary people. Carlyle
said of England that it was composed of sixty
millions of people, mostly fools. His own experience as
a favoured guest at Lady Ashburton's, and other great
houses, ought to have modified his decision. In America,
the Carlyles would have been called "queer," and
probably left out. In England, it is a recommendation
to be "queer," original, thoughtful. In that bubble
which rises to the top, to which Mr. McAllister has given
the name "the four hundred," it is not a recommendation
to be queer, original, or thoughtful.
That some men and women of genius have commanded
success in society only proves the rule; that
some people of fashion have become writers, and painters,
and poets, and have still kept their foothold, is only the
exception.
Charles Astor Bristed, born to fortune and fashion,
declared that what he gained in prestige in England by
becoming an author, he lost in America. What woman
of fashion goes out of her way to find the man of letters
who writes the striking editorials in a morning paper in
New York? In London, a dozen coroneted notes await
such a lucky fellow. Perhaps the most curious instance
of the awkward handling of that rare and valuable instrument,
which we call the art of entertaining in America,
is the deliberate ignoring of the best element of a dinner
party,—the hitherto unknown, or the well-known man
of brains. This distinguishes our entertaining from that
of foreigners.
The best society we have in America is that at Washington;
the President's house is the palace. He and
his ministers, and the judges of the Supreme Court, the
officers of the army and navy, are our aristocracy,—a
simple, unpretending one, but as real in its social laws
and organization as any in the world. And there intellect
reigns. The dinners at Washington, having a kind
of precedence, reinforced by intelligence, independent
of wealth, and regardless of the arbitrary rules of a self-elected
leadership, are the most agreeable in this country,
if not in the world. We have said there are many
sorts of Paris, and so there are many sorts of America.
It must not be supposed that clever people do not get
together, and that there are not dinners of the brightest
and the best. Outside the "four hundred" there is a
group of fifty thousand or more, who have travelled,
thought, and read, experienced, and learned how to give
a good dinner,—a witty dinner.
I use the term "four hundred" as a convenient alias
for that for which Americans have no other name; that
is, the particular reigning set in every city, every small
village. In Paris, republic as it is, there is still a very
decided aristocracy. There is the Duchesse Rochefaucauld
Bisaccia, and the eccentric Duchesse d'Uzes, and
so on, who are decidedly the four hundred. There are
the very wealthy Jews, like the Rothschilds, who are
much to be commended for their recognition of the
supremacy of art and letters. They have become the
protectors of these classes commercially, and their intelligent
wives have made their salons delightful, by bringing
in men of culture and talent. On Sundays the
Comtesse Potocka, who wears the best pearls in Paris,
tries to revive the traditions of the Hotel Rambouillet,
in her beautiful hôtel in the Avenue Friedland. Her
guests are De Maupassant, Ratisbonne, Coquelin, the
painter Bérand, and other men of wit. The Baroness
de Poilly has a tendency to refine Bohemianism and
is an indefatigable pleasure seeker. The only people
she will not receive are the financiers and the heavy-witted.
The Comtesse de Beaumont says that the key
to her house is "wit and intellect without regard to
party, caste, or school." Carolus Duran, Alphonse
Daudet, the painters, whoever is at the head of music,
literature, or the dramatic art, is welcomed there.
The princes of the House of Orléans, are most prominent
in their attentions to people of talent. The Princesse
Mathilde has a house in the Rue de Berri full
of exquisite pictures by the old masters, and a few of
the modern school. Her salon is a model of comfort
and refined elegance, and at her Sunday receptions,
where one meets the world, are men distinguished in
diplomacy, art, and letters.
But what simple dinners, as to meat and drink, do any
of these great people give, compared to the dinners
which are given constantly in New York,—dinners which
are banquets, but to which the young littérateur or
painter would not be invited! That is to say, in London
and in Paris the fashionable woman who would
make her party more fashionable, courts the literary and
artistic guild; as a guild, the fashionable woman in
America does not court them.
It may be said that this is an unfair presentation of
the case, because in London there may be patronage on
one side, while in America there is perfect equality, and
the literary man is a greater aristocrat than the fashionable
woman who gives the party. This is in one sense
true, for the professions have all the honour here. The
journalists are often the men who give the party. The
witty lawyer is the most honoured guest everywhere; so
are certain littérateurs.
People who have become rich suddenly, who wish to
be leaders, to have gay, young, well-dressed guests at
their dinners, do not desire the company of any but
their own kind. Yet they try to emulate the dinners of
London, and are surprised when some English critic
finds their entertainments dull, flat, and unprofitable,
overloaded and vulgar. The same young, gay, rich
dancing set in London would have asked Robert Browning
to the dinner, merely as a matter of fashion. And
it is this fashion which is commendable. It improves
society.
The social recognition of the dramatic profession is
not here what it is in England or France. There is no
Lady Burdett Coutts to take Mr. Irving off on her yacht.
No actor here has the social position which Mr. Irving
has in London. Who ever heard of society running after
Mr. John Gilbert, one of the most respectable men of
his profession, as well as a consummate actor?
In London, duchesses and countesses run after Mr.
Toole; he is a darling of society. Mr. and Mrs. Bancroft
have done much to help their profession and themselves
by taking the initiative, and giving delightful little evenings.
But it is vastly more common, to see many of the
leading actors and actresses in society in London than
in New York. Indeed, it is the custom abroad to ask,
"what has he done, what can he do?" rather than, "how
much is he worth?" The actor is valued for what he is
doing. Perhaps our system of equality is somewhat to
blame for this, and the woman of fashion may wait for
the dramatic artist to take the initiative and call on her.
But we know that any one who should urge this would
be talking nonsense. In our system of entertaining in
a gay city, it is the richest who reigns, and although there
are some people who can still boast a grandfather, it is
the new-comer who is the arbiter of fashion. Such a
person could, in London or Paris or Rome, merely as a
fashionable fad, invite the artist or the writer to make
her party complete. In America she would not do it,
unless the man of genius were a lion, a foreigner, a
novelty. Then she would do so, and perhaps run after
him too much.
And now, as we have been treating of a very small,
unimportant, and to the great American world, unknown
quantity, the reigning set in any city, let us look at the
matter from within. Have we individually considered
the merits of the festive plenty which crowns our table,
relatively to the selection of the company which is
gathered around it?
Have we in any of our cities those déjeuners d'esprit,
as in Paris, where certain witty women invite other
witty women to come and talk of the last new novel?
Have we counted on that possible Utopia where men
and women meet and talk, to contribute of their best
thought to the entertaining? Have we many houses to
which we are asked to a banquet of wit? Are there
many opulent people who can say, The key to my house
is wit and intellect, and character, without regard to
party, caste or school? If such a house can be found,
its owner has, all other things being equal, conquered
the art of entertaining.
Now, all people of talent are not personages of society.
To be that, one must have good manners, know
how to dress one's self and respect the usages of society.
We should not like to meet Dr. Johnson at a ball, but it
is very rare to find people nowadays, however learned,
however retired, however gifted, who have discarded as
he did, the decencies of deportment. The far greater
evil of depriving society of its backbone should be
balanced against this lesser danger.
There are literary and artistic and academic salons
in Paris, which are the most interesting places to the
foreigner, which might be copied in every university
town of America, to the infinite advantage of society.
A fashionable young woman of Paris never misses these,
or the lectures, or her Thursday at the Comédie Française
where she hears the classic plays of Molière and
even Shakspeare. It makes her a very agreeable
talker, although her culture may not be very deep. She
is not a bit less particular as to the number of buttons
on her gloves, or the becomingness of her dress, because
she has given a few hours to her mental development.
In America, we have thoughtful women, gifted
women, brilliant women, but we rarely have the combination
which we see in France, of all this with fashion.
When this young and fashionable hostess gives a
dinner, or an evening, she invites Coquelin and some
of his witty compeers, and she talks over Molière with
the men who understand him best.
It is possible that French littérateurs care more
for society than their American brothers. They go into
it more, and at splendid dinners in Paris I remember
the writers for the "Figaro," as most desirable guests.
The presence of members of the French Academy, for
instance, is much courted, and as feminine influence
plays a considerable rôle in the Academy elections, it
is advisable for playwrights, novelists, and aspiring writers
generally to cultivate influential relations with a view
to the future. However this may be, literature and art
are more highly honoured socially in Paris than in America,
and men of letters lead a very joyous existence, dining
and being dined, and making a dinner delightfully
brilliant.
The artists of Paris have become such magnates, living
in sumptuous houses and giving splendid fêtes, that
it is hardly possible to speak of their being left out; they
are mostly agreeable men,—Carolus Duran and Bonnat
especially. But painters, especially portrait painters,
are always favourites in all fashionable society.
The French women talk much about being in the
"movement" which to the American ear may be translated
the "swim." They follow every picture exhibition,
can quote from the "Figaro" what is going on, they
criticise the last play, the last new novel, they do much
hard work, but they seek out and honour the man of
brains, known or unknown, who has made a fine play or
novel.
Every woman in America may take a lesson in entertaining
from the old world, and strive to combine this
respect for both conditions, the luxury which feeds, and
the brain which illuminates. A house should be at once
a pleasure and a force,—a force to sustain the struggling,
as well as a pleasure to the prosperous.
A merely sumptuous buffet, a check sent to Delmonico
for a "heavy feed" does not master that
great art, which has illuminated the noblest chapters in
the history of our race, and led to the most complete
improvement in the continuous development of mankind.
Without each other we become savages, with the
conquering of the art of entertaining we reach the
highest triumphs of civilization.
It is a progressive art, while those that we have worshipped
stand still. No architect of our day, even when
revealing the inner conceit which cynics say possesses all
minds, would hope to surpass the builders of the Parthenon,
no carver of marble hopes to reach Phidias, no
painter dares to measure his brush with Raphael, Titian,
or Velasquez. "In Asia art has been declining for ages;
the Moor of Fez would hardly recognize what his race
did in Granada; the Indian Mussulman gazes at the
Pearl Mosque as if the genii had built it; the Persians
buy their own old carpets; and the Japanese confess,
with a sigh, that their own old ceramic work cannot be
equalled now." In all art there is "despair of advance,"
except in the art of entertaining.
That is always new and always progressive; there is
no end to the originality which may be brought to bear
upon it. This rule should be constantly enforced. A
hostess must take pains and trouble to give her house a
colour, an originality, and a type of its own. She must
put brains into her entertaining.
We have begun this little book, somewhat bumptiously
perhaps, with an account of our physical resources. Let
us pursue the same strain as to our mental wealth. We
have not only witty after-dinner speakers—in that, let
no country hope to rival us—amongst our lawyers,
journalists, and literary men, but we have our clergy. It
would be difficult to find any hamlet in the United States
where there is not one agreeable clergyman, more often
three or four.
The best addition to a company is an accomplished
divine, who knows that his mission is for two worlds.
He need not be any the less the ambassador to the next,
of which we know so little, because he is a pleasant resident
and improver of this world, of which many of us
feel that we know quite enough. The position of a popular
clergyman is a peculiar and a dangerous one, for he
is expected to be merry with one, and sad with another,
at all hours of the day. Next to the doctor, we confide
in him, and the call on his sympathies might well make a
man doubtful whether any of his emotions are his own.
But the scholarship, the communing with high ideas,
the relationship to his flock, all tend to the formation of
that type of man which we call the agreeable, and
America is extremely rich in this eminent aid to the art
of entertaining. As a Roman Catholic bishop once
observed, "As a part of my duty, I must make myself
agreeable in society;" and so must every clergyman.
And to say truth, we have few examples of a disagreeable
clergyman. While his cloth surrounds him with
reverence and respect, his fertile brain, ready wit, and
cheerful co-operation in the pleasure of the moment,
will be like a finer education and a purifying atmosphere.
From the days of Chrysostom to Sydney Smith the clergy
should be known as the golden-mouthed. The American
mind, brilliant, rapid, and clear, the American speech,
voluble, ready, and replete, the talent for repartee, rapier-like
with so many of our orators, and the quick wit
which seems to be born of our oxygen, all this, added to
the remarkable beauty and tact of our women, of which
all the world is talking, and which the young aristocrats
of the old world seem to be quite willing to appropriate,
makes splendid provision for a dinner, a reception, an
afternoon tea, or a ball.
We sometimes hear complaints of the insufficiency of
society, and that our best men will not go into it. If
there is such an insufficiency, it is because we have too
much sufficiency, we are struggling with the overplus,
often as great an embarrassment as the too little. It is
somebody's fault if we have not learned to play on this
"harp of a thousand strings."
We need not heed the criticism of the world, snobbishly;
we are a great nation, and can afford to make our
own laws. But we should ask of ourselves the question,
whether or not we are too lavish, too fond of display, too
much given to overfeeding, too fond of dress, too much
concerned with the outside of things; we should take the
best ideas of all nations in regard to the progressive art,
the art of entertaining.
Transcriber's Note:
Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.
Inconsistent hyphenation, diacritical marks and spelling in the original
document have been preserved.
The quote starting on page 13, "Viticulture in Algeria", does not
have an ending quote mark.
On page 117, "spatch-cooked" should possibly be "spatch-cocked".
On page 160, "gormandize" should possibly be "gourmandize".
The chapter starting on page 176 is called "Receipts" in the Contents
and "Recipes" in the text.
On page 193, "gargonzala" should possibly be "gorgonzola".
On page 310, "boaston" should possibly be "boston".
