COMPARATIVE MERITS OF AMERICAN AND FOREIGN MODES OF ENTERTAINING.
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".