Chapter IX

_Society Jottings.--Blue Blood in the United States.--Fashionable
Society.--Plutocracy.--Parvenus and Arrives.--Literary and
Artistic Society.--Provincialism.--All the Americans have two
Family Names.--Colonels and Judges.--American Hospitality.--
Terrapin and Raw Duck._

A word about American aristocracy, to begin with.

What, American aristocracy?

Yes, certainly.

I assure you that there exist, in America, social sanctuaries into which it is more difficult to penetrate than into the most exclusive mansions of the Faubourg Saint-Germain or of Mayfair and Belgravia.

There are in Philadelphia; in Beacon Street, Boston; in Washington Square (north side), New York; in Virginia; in Canal Street (right side), New Orleans, Americans who look upon common mortals with much more pity and contempt than the Montmorencys of France or the Howards of England.

Americans, not having any king to give them titles of nobility, have created an aristocracy for themselves. This aristocracy boasts as yet no dukes, marquises, earls, or barons, but the blue blood is there, it appears--Dutch blood--and that is sufficient.

When a European nobleman arrives in the States, the American aristocracy leave cards upon him at the hotel where he has alighted. He may perhaps be personally known to none; but all nobilities are kindred everywhere--it is an act of international courtesy. The European nobleman, who often goes to America for a dowried wife, is much obliged to them, and returns all the visits paid him.

A New York lady, who is quite an authority upon such matters, told me one day that Society in New York was composed of only four hundred persons. Outside this company of _elite_, all Philistines.

Money or celebrity may allow you to enter into this charmed circle, but you will never belong to it. You will be in it, but not of it. The lady in question entered also into very minute details on the subject of what she called the difference between "Society people" and "people in Society"; but, in spite of all her explanations, I confess I did not seize all the delicate _nuances_ she tried to convey. All I clearly understood was that the aristocracy of birth exists in America, not only in the brains of those who form part of it, but in the eyes of their compatriots.

The desire to establish an aristocracy of some sort was bound to haunt the breast of the Americans; it was the only thing that their dollars seemed unable to procure them.

* * * * *

The second aristocracy is the aristocracy of money--plutocracy. To belong to this it is not sufficient to be a millionaire; you must, I am told, belong to a third generation of millionaires. Of such are the Astors, Vanderbilts, and company. Three quarters of "nobility" are the necessary key to this little world. The first generation makes the millions, the second generation is _parvenue_, the third is _arrivee_. In the eyes of these people to have from five to ten thousand a year is to be in decent poverty; to have forty or fifty thousand a year is to be in easy circumstances.

* * * * *

The third aristocracy is the aristocracy of talent, literary and artistic society. This third aristocracy is incontestably the first, if you will excuse the Hibernianism.

I do not think that one could find anywhere, or even imagine, a society more cultivated, more affable, more hospitable, more witty, or more brilliant. I should like just here to indulge in a string of adjectives _a la_ Mme. de Sevigne.

One of the consequences of the position which woman takes in the United States is that, in good American drawing-rooms, conversation is never dull.

"If I were queen," exclaimed Mme. Recamier one day, "I would command Mme. de Stael to talk to me all day long." One would like to be able to give the same order to plenty of American women. In their company conversation never flags, and always remains within the domains of _causerie_; they glide lightly from one subject to another, extracting something fresh from each; pass from the serious to the gay, even to the frivolous, without becoming common-place; soar again to lofty heights, but do not disdain to come down to gossip for a minute or two: all this without a grain of affectation, but with a charm of naturalness that is delightfully winning.

Frenchwomen are the only ones I know who can compare with the American lady in charm of conversation; and, even then, I am obliged to admit two things: that the American women of intellectual society are often more natural than their French rivals, and that they make less effort to charm. In a word, with them you are amiable without having to be gallant; and none of those stereotyped compliments, which so often spoil the charm of a conversation between a man and a woman, are expected of you.

In this society the reunions are not only veritable feasts for the mind; the heart also plays its part. You are welcomed with such cordiality that you feel at once among friends--friends whom you will have profound regret at being obliged to quit so soon, and with whom you hope to keep up relations all your days.

When the steamer left New York harbour, and I was bound for Europe, I hardly knew whether the desire to see my own country again was stronger than my regret at leaving America.

After all, thought I, I am not saying _adieu_ to the Americans, but _au revoir_; a seven days' journey, and I can be among them again.

* * * * *

The large towns of America, even New York, are provincial in this sense: everyone is interested in what the others do. It is not Paris, still less London. Thanks to that indefatigable meddler, the American reporter, who thrusts his nose everywhere, the slightest incidents of private life are made public, and commented upon right and left immediately. You need only live a couple of months in one of the large American cities, no matter which, in order to know everyone, and all their doings.

The mind of the Americans is always on the alert. They enter into everything, everything interests them, and there is always some fresh subject for conversation. If it is not a social event, or a literary or political one, it is a little scandal, a new religious sect, a new spiritualistic imposture--faith-healing, mind-cure;[6] conversation never dies for want of subjects. Exclaim that it is eccentricity if you like, and you will not be far wrong; but add that it is life, and you will be right. It is an existence more interesting than French life in the provinces, as the French poet has described it:--

"You waken, rise, and dress, go out to see the town;
Come home to dine or sup, and then to sleep lie down."

[6] This new craze was upon every tongue at the beginning of
the year. I was assured that, "being ill, you have only to
determine with all your soul that you will get well, and you
are forthwith restored to health." Mind is universal: you
are part of the universal mind, and nothing can really ail
you. So runs the jargon of the sect.

The Americans, and that in every station of life, have almost always three names: one Christian name and two family ones: George Washington Smith, Benjamin Franklin Jones, William Tell Brown. I should not have been astonished to make the acquaintance of a Mr. Napoleon Bonaparte Robinson. The celebrities do not escape it any more than the rest: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, John Greenleaf Whittier, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Thomas Bailey Aldrich, Richard Watson Gilder, James Russell Lowell, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry Ward Beecher, etc., etc. Can one not see in these double names a title which the father thinks he confers on his child at the baptismal font?

All new societies have the same weaknesses. On the morrow of the Great Revolution, did we not call our children Epaminondas, Leonidas, Darius, Napoleon, etc.?

* * * * *

Every American, with the least self-respect, is colonel or judge. Few escape it, as Mark Twain once remarked of the decoration of the Legion of Honour. We are quits, Mark. America has a hundred times as many colonels as we have knights of the Legion of Honour.

When you are presented to a gentleman in an American drawing-room, and you have unfortunately not caught his name, there is no need to try and repair the evil; call him "Colonel," nine times out of ten it is safe; if luck should be against you, call him "Judge," and you are pretty sure to be right.

If, however, pursued by the Fates, you should discover that your interlocutor is neither colonel nor judge, you have yet another resource--call him "Professor," and you are out of your difficulty: an American always professes something, an art, a religion, a science, and you are risking nothing.

I met a few American Colonels who had recently been promoted _misters_. They were so proud of their new title that they insisted on being addressed thus.

* * * * *

American hospitality deserves the reputation which it enjoys in Europe. If it errs, it is perhaps on the side of prodigality. But how criticise hosts so amiable and so cordial?

American hospitality is princely. You are not often invited, even in houses where the daily _menu_ is of the most appetising, to go and share the family dinner. You are not invited to dine--a _fete_ is got up for you. If this cannot be managed, you are seldom invited at all.

You generally find you have been asked to a banquet: oysters, soup, _hors d'oeuvre_, fish, _releves_, _entrees_, sorbets, roasts, stew of terrapin, game (raw canvas-back duck, when in season), salads--five or six vegetables, pastry, sweets, cheese, ices and dessert, the whole washed down with the choicest wines, Chateau-Yquem, Amontillado, iced champagne, Chateau-Lafitte, and such precious beverages.

In good American houses the cooking is excellent; you will not find better in London and Paris.

The most _recherche_ of American dishes is terrapin stew: when in season, it figures at every feast. The flavour is so pronounced that one is bound to think it either delicious or detestable.

Am I obliged to tell you which I think it?

An American asked me one day whether I liked terrapin.

I replied: "It is nothing but polite to bow to the customs of a country one visits. Terrapin is eaten in the United States, and I eat it."

Canvas-back duck is a great delicacy. It is hung in front of a fire for a few minutes only. The first time this purple meat is presented to you, it horrifies you; but I advise you to try and surmount your repugnance--the dish is exquisite.

In France, the English have the reputation of liking all kinds of meat very much undercooked. It is only one of the thousand absurd stories told about them. They prefer their meat very much cooked, on the contrary.

One of the many jokes on the subject of canvas-back duck which I heard was this:

One of these birds having been served to an Englishman, he, after a glance at it, called the waiter and said to him:

"Pass through the kitchen with it once more, please."