Part 9 (2/2)

The ute in America is local, provincial, a matter of the square inch: it is as if the foa the seacoast were to call itself ”society”

There is so pathetic, therefore, in the unwearied pains taken by ambitious women to establish a place in sohters for exhibition on a given evening, to form a circle for them, to marry them well A dozen years hence the millionaires whose notice they seekin so cards will bear wholly different names How idle to attempt to transport into American life the social traditions and delusions which requirearmy, to keep theland, even with the aid of these!

Every woman, like every man, has a natural desire for influence; and if this instinct yearns, as it often should yearn, to take in more than her own family, sheto bear on the building-up of a frivolous social circle--frivolous, because it is not really brilliant, but only showy; not really gay, but only bored-- talent and energy enough to influence the ht of the nation, if only employed in some effective way Who are the women of real influence in Ah whose hands each successive Aeneration has to pass; they are those wives of public men who share their husbands' labor, and help h their personal eloquence or through the press, are distinctly influencing the Arowth The influence of such woe they print, every newspaper column they fill: the individual woot hold of the lever, and gone the right way to work As Aest ”social success” that can be attained here is trivial and local; and you have to ”inary Marchioness, to find in it any career worthThat is the foa with the main currents

IN SOCIETY

One sometimes hears from some lady the remark that very few people ”in society” believe in any hts or duties of woradations than our own, this assertion, if true, , because it leads the way to a little social philosophy Let us, for the sake of argu the assue cities, which claims to be ”society,” _par excellence_ What relation has this favored circle, if favored it be, to any in with, the same relation that ”society” has to every movement of reform The proportion of smiles and frowns bestowed froe movement, for instance, is about that forreat difference In Boston, for exae festivals are about as numerous as those which used to be contributed to the anti-slavery bazaars; no more, no less Indeed, they are very often the same names; and it has been curious to see, for nearly fifty years, how radical tendencies have predominated in some of the well-known Boston families, and conservative tendencies in others

The traits of blood seem to outlast successive series of special reforms

Be this as it may, it is safe to assume, that, as the anti-slavery movement prevailed with only a moderate amount of sanction froitation, which has at least an equal a farther, we find that not reforms alone, but often most important and established institutions, exist and flourish with only incidental aid from those ”in society” Take, for instance, the whole public school systeer cities Grant that out of twenty ladies ”in society,” taken at random, not : it is doubtful whether even that proportion of them would personally favor the public school systeirls, to it Yet the public schools flourish, and give a better training than most private schools, in spite of this inert practical resistance from those ”in society” The natural inference would seem to be, that if an institution so well established as the public schools, and so generally recognized, can afford to be ignored by ”society,” then certainly a wholly new reform must expect no better fate

As a matter of fact, I apprehend that what is called ”society,” in the sense of the more fastidious or exclusive social circle in any coood manners and social refineely under the sway of women, who have, all the world over, a better instinct for these is It is true that ”society” is apt to do even this duty very imperfectly, and often tolerates, and sometimes even cultivates, just the rudeness and discourtesy that it is set to cure Nevertheless, this is its mission; but so soon as it steps beyond this, and atteood er forces

One of these stronger forces is religion, which should train her standard than ”society” alone can teach This standard should be embodied, theoretically, in the Christian Church; but unhappily ”society” is too often stronger than this embodiment, and turns the church itself into aforces are known as science and common-sense, which is only science written in shorthand On some of these various forces all refor them If it could really be shown that some limited social circle was opposed to this, then the moral would seem to be, ”So ht in anti-slavery days that one of the ave to young rown up ”in society,” but were happily taken in hand by a stronger influence It is Goethe who suggests, when discussing Hamlet in ”Wilhelm Meister,” that, if an oak be planted in a flower-pot, it will be worse in the end for the flower-pot than for the tree And to those atch, year after year, the young hus planted ”in society,” the main point of interest lies in the discovery which of these are likely to grow into oaks

But the truth is that the very use of the word ”society” in this sense is narrow and h to live in a larger society, where no conventional position or family traditions exert an influence that is to be in the least degree coy, and character No matter how fastidious the social circle, one is constantly struck with the limitations of its influence, and with the little power exerted by its members as coue and pen No merely fashi+onable woman in New York, for instance, has a position sufficiently important to be called influential compared with that of a woman who can speak in public so as to command hearers, or can write so as to secure readers To be at the head of a nore where co-education prevails, is to have a sway over the destinies of America which reduces all mere ”social position” to a e's buttons

THE BATTLE OF THE CARDS

The great winter's contest of the visiting-cards reco the suhbred and thoroughly sophisticated haunts, it will set in with fury in the habitable regions of our cities before the snow falls Noill the atmosphere of certain streets and squares be darkened--or whitened--at the appointed hour by the shower of pasteboard transloved hands of ”John,” and destined through hiloveless hands of some other John, who stands obsequious in the doorway Noill every lady, after John has slaing, as she goes, her display of cards, laid as if for a gae, and dealt perhaps in four suits,--her own cards, her daughters', her husband's, her ”Mr and Mrs” cards, and who kno many more? With all this aood society she becomes; what an accue at any door! That one well-appointed woe, represents the total visiting power of self, husband, daughters, and possibly a son or two beside She has all their counterfeit presentments in her hands How happy she is! and how happy will the others be on her return, to think that dear mamma has disposed of so ! It will be three months at least, they think, before the A's and the B's and the C's will have to be ”done” again

Ah! but who kno soon these fatiguing letters of the alphabet, rallying to the defence, will come, pasteboard in hand, to return the onset? In this contest, fair ladies, ”there are blows to take as well as blows to give,” in the words of the i, you will find a half-dozen cards on your own table that will undo all this ain Is it not like a cay, doubtless, that when gentlee cards as preliht, all other French journalists show their sy him their cards When we see, therefore, these heroic ladies riding forth in the social battle's e due to the brave When we consider how coroe fancy each of these self-devotedin her martyr-breast the points of a dozen different cards, and shouting, ”Make way for liberty!” For is it not securing liberty to have cleared off a dozen calls from your list, and found nobody at hooes on, who can tell where the paper warfare shall end? If ladies may leave cards for their husbands, who are never seen out of Wall Street, except when they are seen at their clubs; or for their sons, who never forsake their billiards or their books,--why can they not also leave them for their ancestors, or for their remotest posterity? Who knows but people randchildren whom they only wish for, orpasteboard in behalf of two hostile grandparents who died half a century ago?

And there is another social observance in which the introduction of the card system may yet be destined to save much labor,--the attendance on fashi+onable churches Already, it is said, a family may sometimes reconcile devout observance with a late breakfast, by stationing the fae near the church-door--empty Really, it would not be a much emptier observance to send the cards alone by the footress of civilization we shall yet reach that point It will have es The _effete_ of society, as some cruel satirist has called them, may then send their orisons on pasteboard to astheir souls, as it were, at several different offices Church architecturebut a card-basket The clergyman will celebrate his solemn ritual, and will then look in that convenient receptacle for the names of his felloorshi+ppers, as a fine lady, after her ”reception,” looks over the cards her footman hands her, to knohich of her dear friends she has been welcolide slazed pasteboard; and it will be only very hu in person, and will hold to the worn-out and obsolete practice of ”No Cards”

SOME WORKING-WOMEN

It is almost a stereotyped remark, that the women of the more fashi+onable and worldly class, in America, are indolent, idle, incapable, and live feeble and lazy lives It has always seemed to me that, on the contrary, they are compelled, by the very circumstances of their situation, to lead very laborious lives, requiring great strength and energy Whether many of their pursuits are frivolous, is a different question; but that they are arduous, I do not see how any one can doubt I think it can be easily shown that the coainst Aainst the class I describe

There is, for instance, the charge of evading the cares of housekeeping, and of preferring a boarding-house or hotel But no woh aims in the world of fashi+on can afford to relieve herself from household cares in this way, except as an exceptional or occasional thing She must keep house in order to have entertainments, to forive and take is as absolute in society as in business; and the very first essential to social position in our larger cities is a household and a hospitality of one's own It is far land to live tes in London, than for any family with social aspirations to do the same in New York The married woman who seeks a position in the world of society must, therefore, keep house