Worldly Ways and Byways

E >> Eliot Gregory >> Worldly Ways and Byways

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An artist feels, he must fix on canvas that particular combination
of colors or that wonderful line of bust and hip. It is with a
shudder that he turns to the British matron, for she has probably,
for this occasion, draped herself in an "art material," -
principally "Liberty" silks of dirty greens and blues (aesthetic
shades!). He is tempted to cry out in his disgust: "Oh, Liberty!
Liberty! How many crimes are committed in thy name!" It is one of
the oddest things in the world that the English should have elected
to live so much in France, for there are probably nowhere two
peoples so diametrically opposed on every point, or who so
persistently and wilfully misunderstand each other, as the English
and the French.

It has been my fate to live a good deal on both sides of the
Channel, and nothing is more amusing than to hear the absurdities
that are gravely asserted by each of their neighbors. To a Briton,
a Frenchman will always be "either tiger or monkey" according to
Voltaire; while to the French mind English gravity is only
hypocrisy to cover every vice. Nothing pleases him so much as a
great scandal in England; he will gleefully bring you a paper
containing the account of it, to prove how true is his opinion. It
is quite useless to explain to the British mind, as I have often
tried to do, that all Frenchmen do not pass their lives drinking
absinthe on the boulevards; and as Englishmen seem to leave their
morals in a valise at Dover when off for a visit to Paris, to be
picked up on their return, it is time lost to try to make a Gaul
understand what good husbands and fathers the sons of Albion are.

These two great nations seem to stand in the relation to each other
that Rome and Greece held. The English are the conquerors of the
world, and its great colonizers; with a vast capital in which
wealth and misery jostle each other on the streets; a hideous
conglomeration of buildings and monuments, without form and void,
very much as old Rome must have been under the Caesars, enormous
buildings without taste, and enormous wealth. The French have
inherited the temperament of the Greeks. The drama, painting, and
sculpture are the preoccupation of the people. The yearly
exhibitions are, for a month before they open, the unique subject
of conversation in drawing-room or club. The state protects the
artist and buys his work. Their CONSERVATOIRES form the singers,
and their schools the painters and architects of Europe and
America.

The English copy them in their big way, just as the Romans copied
the masterpieces of Greek art, while they despised the authors. It
is rare that a play succeeds in Paris which is not instantly
translated and produced in London, often with the adapter's name
printed on the programme in place of the author's, the French-man,
who only wrote it, being ignored. Just as the Greeks faded away
and disappeared before their Roman conquerors, it is to be feared
that in our day this people of a finer clay will succumb. The
"defects of their qualities" will be their ruin. They will stop at
home, occupied with literature and art, perfecting their dainty
cities; while their tougher neighbors are dominating the globe,
imposing their language and customs on the conquered peoples or the
earth. One feels this on the Riviera. It reminds you of the
cuckoo who, once installed in a robin's nest, that seems to him
convenient and warmly located in the sunshine, ends by kicking out
all the young robins.

CHAPTER 23 - A Common Weakness

GOVERNMENTS may change and all the conditions of life be modified,
but certain ambitions and needs of man remain immutable. Climates,
customs, centuries, have in no way diminished the craving for
consideration, the desire to be somebody, to bear some mark
indicating to the world that one is not as other men.

For centuries titles supplied the want. This satisfaction has been
denied to us, so ambitious souls are obliged to seek other means to
feed their vanity.

Even before we were born into the world of nations, an attempt was
made amongst the aristocratically minded court surrounding our
chief magistrate, to form a society that should (without the name)
be the beginning of a class apart.

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.

CHAPTER 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.

CHAPTER 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.

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