Our house is the tacitly recognized head-quarters for all kinds and conditions of clever people, and some not so clever, but who—in their way—are just as interesting:
Social Exquisites.
Social Drifters.
Briefless Barristers.
Men Who Have Risen.
Men Unsuccessful.
Sympathy Seekers.
Sympathy Finders.
Newspaper Reporters.
Newspaper Poets.
Authors Private.
Authors Public.
People Of The Army.
People Of The Navy.
Bohemians, Ragged As To Their Cuffs, Unkempt As To Their Raiment.
All Classes, Shades And Conditions Of Life.
In Short, A Strange Kaleidoscopic Circle.
To be a gentleman above question is the badge of admission. To be clever is the badge of promotion. I am the center of this intensely interesting circle. I am the focus, the magnet around which they all revolve. The bulk of the social burden rests on me. The minute but highly important details are carefully watched and skillfully righted by the good mother. I am the General Entertainer, but she is the ameliorator of those little roughnesses, those little sharp corners which cling even to unconventional people. Her clear, well-balanced mind, her gentle, yet quietly positive temperament, peculiarly fit her for this necessary but frequently neglected social work.
I am young, beautiful, untrammeled; I am full of an unlimited ambition; I am not content with the small things of life; I will have none of those precious morsels—mere fragments—which tempt and readily please my sweet sisters in Vanity Fair. Young, yet I am far enough beyond twenty to have ideas of my own. Beautiful, yet I am free from that all-conscious air which pervades the average beauty. Untrammeled, because men do not touch me—have not the power to rouse within me one tender feeling. I am interested always, but I am never susceptible. Women depend too much on their intuitions; they know so little about human nature, and less about man-nature. An intuition is oftentimes a safeguard to woman but more frequently a danger, because it creates within her too much of a servile dependence upon mere impulses and first impressions. My own intuitions are strong, but I want my knowledge to be stronger. I want to know all there is to know about men, women, and things. Women are usually like open books to me, easily read while passing on to matters more interesting—men.
A man once asked me what special impression or effect I should like to have on a man of the world who had been every where, done every thing, seen every thing, knew every thing (or at least thought so)—in fine, a man with the edge of every desire dulled, the glow of every passion cooled. My answer was simply this: I should try to give him what I constantly and without much effort gave most men—A new sensation. After all it is not such a hard thing to do. Blasé men are my especial prey; they can always be reached; their vulnerable points are many, but generally well concealed.
I have lost my early enthusiasms, but my enthusiastic manner still remains. A genuine, cynical touch has, here of late, fallen into my life. It is not an affectation. I am all the better for that touch; it makes me more of a power among my subjects. For they are in reality my subjects. In the main they are loyal. They are ready to fight for me and my cause—if I had one.
I have divided my subjects—and other men—into:
I. Platitudes,
II. Pleasures.
Platitudes are men who lead an honest, stupid existence. They are contented with their lot—because ignorant of any other. They are resentful of all innovations—because they are narrow-minded and full of deep ruts; they are guiltless of one clever thought; they sometimes stumble into somewhat of a clever action, but humbly deprecate the move, unconscious of having done a clever thing. Such men used to float about me in shoals of delicious stupidity. I was such a new creature! I was so different from the women they had met and always known. They were the foolish moths, I the candle-flame. They dashed blindly into danger; they fluttered about in ungraceful, ungracious misery. Finally, they would fly out and go on their little commonplace ways full of scars and petty burns, but not altogether marred—all the better for their uncomfortable but harmless burning. But nowadays it is quality not numbers which I desire, so they let me alone and are indeed astonished, bewildered, to find that I can go on, quite successfully too, and without them. Poor little fools; they are not an absolute necessity to any one—hardly to themselves.