“And, then, what American, if he sets out to do it, cannot force himself into the best society by having recourse to a stratagem? which, I believe, is altogether of our own invention, and consists in the practice of asking people to whom we are recommended, to introduce us to others with whom they are acquainted; and so on. Not only does our acquaintance, in this manner, wonderfully increase; but, as every one of our friends must necessarily know some two or three persons above him, we cannot but ‘get up by degrees,’ until we reach a point infinitely above the level of our first introduction.[12] Some conceited Englishmen have called this practice ‘the method of begging one’s-self into society;’ but, with our élite, nothing is deemed unfair which is not absolutely opposed to the established laws of the country.”
“But some of our people keep elegant establishments in Paris, and, I am told, actually ruin themselves by entertaining the nobility,” observed my friend.
“Some may injure themselves in that way,” replied the young physician; “but I am sure others make money by it. Trust a Yankee to himself!”
“I do not quite understand you,” observed my friend.
“The thing is plain enough,” rejoined the physician; “the society of the nobility procures them the custom of their own countrymen, who consider a man of that sort as ‘a stepping-stone to something better;’ and he, poor innocent soul! makes them pay for the use they make of him.”
“A propos,” demanded my friend, “have you dined with Mr. L***?”
“I was invited to dine there; but merely listened to the gentleman’s own eulogy of his wines, and the eloquent description of every dish that was put upon the table, in order, afterwards, quietly to sneak off, and appease the cravings of my stomach at some snug little restaurant on the other side of the water. The gentleman you allude to has, moreover, lately turned jockey, and is now entertaining clergymen and physicians with nothing but horse-flesh. He probably thinks that this will ingratiate him with the English, and, in some respects, place him on the same footing with Lord S—r.”
“All I have heard of that extraordinary little man, who, as I understand, has already risen to the dignity of ‘un homme de passage,’[13] convinces me that he is acting the bourgeois gentilhomme, for the peculiar gratification of the less rich, but more refined, gentlemen of the old régime; only that he is not quite so generous as his original in the inimitable comedy of Molière.”
“Neither does he trouble himself with so many masters. He is, in this respect at least, a true independent American, whose conversation would convince you in a moment that he has never had a master in his life. So far from it, he has himself turned schoolmaster, teaching a certain portion of his raw countrymen, not indeed the art of eating, but of preparing savoury dishes. Let one of those persons have the most trifling advantage over any of his fellow beings, and he is sure to use it as a means of establishing his superiority; for the scrambling for rank is born with them, and is only increased by a residence in Europe.”
“Neither does it merely apply to such ordinary characters as you have just mentioned,” added my friend. “I have known American editors assume in Paris—seldom, I believe, in London—an air of supercilious dignity, which would have been amusing if it had not been too absurd to be tolerated. They would allow Chevalier, and other writers of the French periodical press, to cultivate their acquaintance, and occasionally ‘condescend to receiving them at their houses;’ as if the hospitality they had received in Paris, and the willingness of certain people of fashion to come to their soirées, had actually given to their talents—which, if they had remained in America, would, in all probability, have never been known to the world—an additional lustre, that outshone the merits of their European contemporaries.”