Worldly Ways and Byways
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Eliot Gregory >> Worldly Ways and Byways
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15 Worldly Ways and Byways - Eliot Gregory. 1899 edition. Scanned and
proofed by David Price, email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk
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Worldly Ways and Byways
A Table of Contents
To the READER
1. Charm
2. The Moth and the Star
3. Contrasted Travelling
4. The Outer and the Inner Woman
5. On Some Gilded Misalliances
6. The Complacency of Mediocrity
7. The Discontent of Talent
8. Slouch
9. Social Suggestion
10. Bohemia
11. Social Exiles
12. "Seven Ages" of Furniture
13. Our Elite and Public Life
14. The Small Summer Hotel
15. A False Start
16. A Holy Land
17. Royalty at Play
18. A Rock Ahead
19. The Grand Prix
20. "The Treadmill"
21. "Like Master Like Man"
22. An English Invasion of the Riviera
23. A Common Weakness
24. Changing Paris
25. Contentment
26. The Climber
27. The Last of the Dandies
28. A Nation on the Wing
29. Husks
30. The Faubourg St. Germain
31. Men's Manners
32. An Ideal Hostess
33. The Introducer
34. A Question and an Answer
35. Living on Your Friends
36. American Society in Italy
37. The Newport of the Past
38. A Conquest of Europe
39. A Race of Slaves
40. Introspection
To the Reader
THERE existed formerly, in diplomatic circles, a curious custom,
since fallen into disuse, entitled the Pele Mele, contrived
doubtless by some distracted Master of Ceremonies to quell the
endless jealousies and quarrels for precedence between courtiers
and diplomatists of contending pretensions. Under this rule no
rank was recognized, each person being allowed at banquet, fete, or
other public ceremony only such place as he had been ingenious or
fortunate enough to obtain.
Any one wishing to form an idea of the confusion that ensued, of
the intrigues and expedients resorted to, not only in procuring
prominent places, but also in ensuring the integrity of the Pele
Mele, should glance over the amusing memoirs of M. de Segur.
The aspiring nobles and ambassadors, harassed by this constant
preoccupation, had little time or inclination left for any serious
pursuit, since, to take a moment's repose or an hour's breathing
space was to risk falling behind in the endless and aimless race.
Strange as it may appear, the knowledge that they owed place and
preferment more to chance or intrigue than to any personal merit or
inherited right, instead of lessening the value of the prizes for
which all were striving, seemed only to enhance them in the eyes of
the competitors.
Success was the unique standard by which they gauged their fellows.
Those who succeeded revelled in the adulation of their friends, but
when any one failed, the fickle crowd passed him by to bow at more
fortunate feet.
No better picture could be found of the "world" of to-day, a
perpetual Pele Mele, where such advantages only are conceded as we
have been sufficiently enterprising to obtain, and are strong or
clever enough to keep - a constant competition, a daily
steeplechase, favorable to daring spirits and personal initiative
but with the defect of keeping frail humanity ever on the qui vive.
Philosophers tell us, that we should seek happiness only in the
calm of our own minds, not allowing external conditions or the
opinions of others to influence our ways. This lofty detachment
from environment is achieved by very few. Indeed, the philosophers
themselves (who may be said to have invented the art of "posing")
were generally as vain as peacocks, profoundly pre-occupied with
the verdict of their contemporaries and their position as regards
posterity.
Man is born gregarious and remains all his life a herding animal.
As one keen observer has written, "So great is man's horror of
being alone that he will seek the society of those he neither likes
nor respects sooner than be left to his own." The laws and
conventions that govern men's intercourse have, therefore, formed a
tempting subject for the writers of all ages. Some have labored
hoping to reform their generation, others have written to offer
solutions for life's many problems.
Beaumarchais, whose penetrating wit left few subjects untouched,
makes his Figaro put the subject aside with "Je me presse de rire
de tout, de peur d'etre oblige d'en pleurer."
The author of this little volume pretends to settle no disputes,
aims at inaugurating no reforms. He has lightly touched on passing
topics and jotted down, "to point a moral or adorn a tale," some of
the more obvious foibles and inconsistencies of our American ways.
If a stray bit of philosophy has here and there slipped in between
the lines, it is mostly of the laughing "school," and used more in
banter than in blame.
This much abused "world" is a fairly agreeable place if you do not
take it seriously. Meet it with a friendly face and it will smile
gayly back at you, but do not ask of it what it cannot give, or
attribute to its verdicts more importance than they deserve.
ELIOT GREGORY
Newport, November first, 1897
CHAPTER 1 - Charm
WOMEN endowed by nature with the indescribable quality we call
"charm" (for want of a better word), are the supreme development of
a perfected race, the last word, as it were, of civilization; the
flower of their kind, crowning centuries of growing refinement and
cultivation. Other women may unite a thousand brilliant qualities,
and attractive attributes, may be beautiful as Astarte or witty as
Madame de Montespan, those endowed with the power of charm, have in
all ages and under every sky, held undisputed rule over the hearts
of their generation.
When we look at the portraits of the enchantresses whom history
tells us have ruled the world by their charm, and swayed the
destinies of empires at their fancy, we are astonished to find that
they have rarely been beautiful. From Cleopatra or Mary of
Scotland down to Lola Montez, the tell-tale coin or canvas reveals
the same marvellous fact. We wonder how these women attained such
influence over the men of their day, their husbands or lovers. We
would do better to look around us, or inward, and observe what is
passing in our own hearts.
Pause, reader mine, a moment and reflect. Who has held the first
place in your thoughts, filled your soul, and influenced your life?
Was she the most beautiful of your acquaintances, the radiant
vision that dazzled your boyish eyes? Has she not rather been some
gentle, quiet woman whom you hardly noticed the first time your
paths crossed, but who gradually grew to be a part of your life -
to whom you instinctively turned for consolation in moments of
discouragement, for counsel in your difficulties, and whose welcome
was the bright moment in your day, looked forward to through long
hours of toil and worry?
In the hurly-burly of life we lose sight of so many things our
fathers and mothers clung to, and have drifted so far away from
their gentle customs and simple, home-loving habits, that one
wonders what impression our society would make on a woman of a
century ago, could she by some spell be dropped into the swing of
modern days. The good soul would be apt to find it rather a far
cry from the quiet pleasures of her youth, to "a ladies' amateur
bicycle race" that formed the attraction recently at a summer
resort.
That we should have come to think it natural and proper for a young
wife and mother to pass her mornings at golf, lunching at the club-
house to "save time," returning home only for a hurried change of
toilet to start again on a bicycle or for a round of calls, an
occupation that will leave her just the half-hour necessary to slip
into a dinner gown, and then for her to pass the evening in dancing
or at the card-table, shows, when one takes the time to think of
it, how unconsciously we have changed, and (with all apologies to
the gay hostesses and graceful athletes of to-day) not for the
better.
It is just in the subtle quality of charm that the women of the
last ten years have fallen away from their elder sisters. They
have been carried along by a love of sport, and by the set of
fashion's tide, not stopping to ask themselves whither they are
floating. They do not realize all the importance of their acts nor
the true meaning of their metamorphosis.
The dear creatures should be content, for they have at last escaped
from the bondage of ages, have broken their chains, and vaulted
over their prison walls. "Lords and masters" have gradually become
very humble and obedient servants, and the "love, honour, and obey"
of the marriage service might now more logically be spoken by the
man; on the lips of the women of to-day it is but a graceful "FACON
DE PARLER," and holds only those who choose to be bound.
It is not my intention to rail against the short-comings of the
day. That ungrateful task I leave to sterner moralists, and
hopeful souls who naively imagine they can stem the current of an
epoch with the barrier of their eloquence, or sweep back an ocean
of innovations by their logic. I should like, however, to ask my
sisters one question: Are they quite sure that women gain by these
changes? Do they imagine, these "sporty" young females in short-
cut skirts and mannish shirts and ties, that it is seductive to a
lover, or a husband to see his idol in a violent perspiration, her
draggled hair blowing across a sunburned face, panting up a long
hill in front of him on a bicycle, frantic at having lost her race?
Shade of gentle William! who said
A woman moved, is like a fountain troubled, -
Muddy, ill-seeming, thick, bereft of beauty.
And while it is so, none so dry or thirsty
Will deign to sip or touch one drop of it.
Is the modern girl under the impression that men will be contented
with poor imitations of themselves, to share their homes and be the
mothers of their children? She is throwing away the substance for
the shadow!
The moment women step out from the sanctuary of their homes, the
glamour that girlhood or maternity has thrown around them cast
aside, that moment will they cease to rule mankind. Women may
agitate until they have obtained political recognition, but will
awake from their foolish dream of power, realizing too late what
they have sacrificed to obtain it, that the price has been very
heavy, and the fruit of their struggles bitter on their lips.
There are few men, I imagine, of my generation to whom the words
"home" and "mother" have not a penetrating charm, who do not look
back with softened heart and tender thoughts to fireside scenes of
evening readings and twilight talks at a mother's knee, realizing
that the best in their natures owes its growth to these influences.
I sometimes look about me and wonder what the word "mother" will
mean later, to modern little boys. It will evoke, I fear, a
confused remembrance of some centaur-like being, half woman, half
wheel, or as it did to neglected little Rawdon Crawley, the vision
of a radiant creature in gauze and jewels, driving away to endless
FETES - FETES followed by long mornings, when he was told not to
make any noise, or play too loudly, "as poor mamma is resting."
What other memories can the "successful" woman of to-day hope to
leave in the minds of her children? If the child remembers his
mother in this way, will not the man who has known and perhaps
loved her, feel the same sensation of empty futility when her name
is mentioned?
The woman who proposes a game of cards to a youth who comes to pass
an hour in her society, can hardly expect him to carry away a
particularly tender memory of her as he leaves the house. The girl
who has rowed, ridden, or raced at a man's side for days, with the
object of getting the better of him at some sport or pastime,
cannot reasonably hope to be connected in his thoughts with ideas
more tender or more elevated than "odds" or "handicaps," with an
undercurrent of pique if his unsexed companion has "downed" him
successfully.
What man, unless he be singularly dissolute or unfortunate, but
turns his steps, when he can, towards some dainty parlor where he
is sure of finding a smiling, soft-voiced woman, whose welcome he
knows will soothe his irritated nerves and restore the even balance
of his temper, whose charm will work its subtle way into his
troubled spirit? The wife he loves, or the friend he admires and
respects, will do more for him in one such quiet hour when two
minds commune, coming closer to the real man, and moving him to
braver efforts, and nobler aims, than all the beauties and "sporty"
acquaintances of a lifetime. No matter what a man's education or
taste is, none are insensible to such an atmosphere or to the grace
and witchery a woman can lend to the simplest surroundings. She
need not be beautiful or brilliant to hold him in lifelong
allegiance, if she but possess this magnetism.
Madame Recamier was a beautiful, but not a brilliant woman, yet she
held men her slaves for years. To know her was to fall under her
charm, and to feel it once was to remain her adorer for life. She
will go down to history as the type of a fascinating woman. Being
asked once by an acquaintance what spell she worked on mankind that
enabled her to hold them for ever at her feet, she laughingly
answered:
"I have always found two words sufficient. When a visitor comes
into my salon, I say, 'ENFIN!' and when he gets up to go away, I
say, 'DEJA!' "
"What is this wonderful 'charm' he is writing about?" I hear some
sprightly maiden inquire as she reads these lines. My dear young
lady, if you ask the question, you have judged yourself and been
found wanting. But to satisfy you as far as I can, I will try and
define it - not by telling you what it is; that is beyond my power
- but by negatives, the only way in which subtle subjects can be
approached.
A woman of charm is never flustered and never DISTRAITE. She talks
little, and rarely of herself, remembering that bores are persons
who insist on talking about themselves. She does not break the
thread of a conversation by irrelevant questions or confabulate in
an undertone with the servants. No one of her guests receives more
of her attention than another and none are neglected. She offers
to each one who speaks the homage of her entire attention. She
never makes an effort to be brilliant or entertain with her wit.
She is far too clever for that. Neither does she volunteer
information nor converse about her troubles or her ailments, nor
wander off into details about people you do not know.
She is all things - to each man she likes, in the best sense of
that phrase, appreciating his qualities, stimulating him to better
things.
- for his gayer hours
She has a voice of gladness and a smile and eloquence of beauty;
and she glides
Into his darker musings with a mild and healing sympathy that
steals away
Their sharpness ere he is aware.
CHAPTER 2 - The Moth and the Star
THE truth of the saying that "it is always the unexpected that
happens," receives in this country a confirmation from an unlooked-
for quarter, as does the fact of human nature being always,
discouragingly, the same in spite of varied surroundings. This
sounds like a paradox, but is an exceedingly simple statement
easily proved.
That the great mass of Americans, drawn as they are from such
varied sources, should take any interest in the comings and goings
or social doings of a small set of wealthy and fashionable people,
is certainly an unexpected development. That to read of the
amusements and home life of a clique of people with whom they have
little in common, whose whole education and point of view are
different from their own, and whom they have rarely seen and never
expect to meet, should afford the average citizen any amusement
seems little short of impossible.
One accepts as a natural sequence that abroad (where an hereditary
nobility have ruled for centuries, and accustomed the people to
look up to them as the visible embodiment of all that is splendid
and unattainable in life) such interest should exist. That the
home-coming of an English or French nobleman to his estates should
excite the enthusiasm of hundreds more or less dependent upon him
for their amusement or more material advantages; that his marriage
to an heiress - meaning to them the re-opening of a long-closed
CHATEAU and the beginning of a period of prosperity for the
district - should excite his neighbors is not to be wondered at.
It is well known that whole regions have been made prosperous by
the residence of a court, witness the wealth and trade brought into
Scotland by the Queen's preference for "the Land of Cakes," and the
discontent and poverty in Ireland from absenteeism and persistent
avoidance of that country by the court. But in this land, where
every reason for interesting one class in another seems lacking,
that thousands of well-to-do people (half the time not born in this
hemisphere), should delightedly devour columns of incorrect
information about New York dances and Lenox house-parties, winter
cruises, or Newport coaching parades, strikes the observer as the
"unexpected" in its purest form.
That this interest exists is absolutely certain. During a trip in
the West, some seasons ago, I was dumbfounded to find that the
members of a certain New York set were familiarly spoken of by
their first names, and was assailed with all sorts of eager
questions when it was discovered that I knew them. A certain young
lady, at that time a belle in New York, was currently called SALLY,
and a well-known sportsman FRED, by thousands of people who had
never seen either of them. It seems impossible, does it not? Let
us look a little closer into the reason of this interest, and we
shall find how simple is the apparent paradox.
Perhaps in no country, in all the world, do the immense middle
classes lead such uninteresting lives, and have such limited
resources at their disposal for amusement or the passing of leisure
hours.
Abroad the military bands play constantly in the public parks; the
museums and palaces are always open wherein to pass rainy Sunday
afternoons; every village has its religious FETES and local fair,
attended with dancing and games. All these mental relaxations are
lacking in our newer civilization; life is stripped of everything
that is not distinctly practical; the dull round of weekly toil is
only broken by the duller idleness of an American Sunday.
Naturally, these people long for something outside of themselves
and their narrow sphere.
Suddenly there arises a class whose wealth permits them to break
through the iron circle of work and boredom, who do picturesque and
delightful things, which appeal directly to the imagination; they
build a summer residence complete, in six weeks, with furniture and
bric-a-brac, on the top of a roadless mountain; they sail in
fairylike yachts to summer seas, and marry their daughters to the
heirs of ducal houses; they float up the Nile in dahabeeyah, or
pass the "month of flowers" in far Japan.
It is but human nature to delight in reading of these things. Here
the great mass of the people find (and eagerly seize on), the
element of romance lacking in their lives, infinitely more
enthralling than the doings of any novel's heroine. It is real!
It is taking place! and - still deeper reason - in every ambitious
American heart lingers the secret hope that with luck and good
management they too may do those very things, or at least that
their children will enjoy the fortunes they have gained, in just
those ways. The gloom of the monotonous present is brightened, the
patient toiler returns to his desk with something definite before
him - an objective point - towards which he can struggle; he knows
that this is no impossible dream. Dozens have succeeded and prove
to him what energy and enterprise can accomplish.
Do not laugh at this suggestion; it is far truer than you imagine.
Many a weary woman has turned from such reading to her narrow
duties, feeling that life is not all work, and with renewed hope in
the possibilities of the future.
Doubtless a certain amount of purely idle curiosity is mingled with
the other feelings. I remember quite well showing our city sights
to a bored party of Western friends, and failing entirely to amuse
them, when, happening to mention as we drove up town, "there goes
Mr. Blank," (naming a prominent leader of cotillions), my guests
nearly fell over each other and out of the carriage in their
eagerness to see the gentleman of whom they had read so much, and
who was, in those days, a power in his way, and several times after
they expressed the greatest satisfaction at having seen him.
I have found, with rare exceptions, and the experience has been
rather widely gathered all over the country, that this interest -
or call it what you will - has been entirely without spite or
bitterness, rather the delight of a child in a fairy story. For
people are rarely envious of things far removed from their grasp.
You will find that a woman who is bitter because her neighbor has a
girl "help" or a more comfortable cottage, rarely feels envy
towards the owners of opera-boxes or yachts. Such heart-burnings
(let us hope they are few) are among a class born in the shadow of
great wealth, and bred up with tastes that they can neither
relinquish nor satisfy. The large majority of people show only a
good-natured inclination to chaff, none of the "class feeling"
which certain papers and certain politicians try to excite.
Outside of the large cities with their foreign-bred, semi-
anarchistic populations, the tone is perfectly friendly; for the
simple reason that it never entered into the head of any American
to imagine that there WAS any class difference. To him his rich
neighbors are simply his lucky neighbors, almost his relations,
who, starting from a common stock, have been able to "get there"
sooner than he has done. So he wishes them luck on the voyage in
which he expects to join them as soon as he has had time to make a
fortune.
So long as the world exists, or at least until we have reformed it
and adopted Mr. Bellamy's delightful scheme of existence as
described in "Looking Backward," great fortunes will be made, and
painful contrasts be seen, especially in cities, and it would seem
to be the duty of the press to soften - certainly not to sharpen -
the edge of discontent. As long as human nature is human nature,
and the poor care to read of the doings of the more fortunate, by
all means give them the reading they enjoy and demand, but let it
be written in a kindly spirit so that it may be a cultivation as
well as a recreation. Treat this perfectly natural and honest
taste honestly and naturally, for, after all, it is
The desire of the moth for the star,
Of the night for the morrow.
The devotion to something afar
From the sphere of our sorrow.
CHAPTER 3 - Contrasted Travelling
WHEN our parents went to Europe fifty years ago, it was the event
of a lifetime - a tour lovingly mapped out in advance with advice
from travelled friends. Passports were procured, books read, wills
made, and finally, prayers were offered up in church and solemn
leave-taking performed. Once on the other side, descriptive
letters were conscientiously written, and eagerly read by friends
at home, - in spite of these epistles being on the thinnest of
paper and with crossing carried to a fine art, for postage was high
in the forties. Above all, a journal was kept.
Such a journal lies before me as I write. Four little volumes in
worn morocco covers and faded "Italian" writing, more precious than
all my other books combined, their sight recalls that lost time -
my youth - when, as a reward, they were unlocked that I might look
at the drawings, and the sweetest voice in the world would read to
me from them! Happy, vanished days, that are so far away they seem
to have been in another existence!
The first volume opens with the voyage across the Atlantic, made in
an American clipper (a model unsurpassed the world over), which was
accomplished in thirteen days, a feat rarely equalled now, by sail.
Genial Captain Nye was in command. The same who later, when a
steam propelled vessel was offered him, refused, as unworthy of a
seaman, "to boil a kettle across the ocean."
Life friendships were made in those little cabins, under the
swinging lamp the travellers re-read last volumes so as to be
prepared to appreciate everything on landing. Ireland, England and
Scotland were visited with an enthusiasm born of Scott, the tedium
of long coaching journeys being beguiled by the first "numbers" of
"Pickwick," over which the men of the party roared, but which the
ladies did not care for, thinking it vulgar, and not to be compared
to "Waverley," "Thaddeus of Warsaw," or "The Mysteries of Udolpho."
A circular letter to our diplomatic agents abroad was presented in
each city, a rite invariably followed by an invitation to dine, for
which occasions a black satin frock with a low body and a few
simple ornaments, including (supreme elegance) a diamond cross,
were carried in the trunks. In London a travelling carriage was
bought and stocked, the indispensable courier engaged, half guide,
half servant, who was expected to explore a city, or wait at table,
as occasion required. Four days were passed between Havre and
Paris, and the slow progress across Europe was accomplished, Murray
in one hand and Byron in the other.
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