At his house are to be seen many of the ‘Dii minores gentium,’ such as actresses turned into duchesses and countesses, &c. who are not admitted into the circle ‘par excellence.’ * * *
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A high degree of influence is also possessed by a foreign ambassador; and without doubt he would possess the very highest, if the best tone, kind-hearted amiability, high rank, the finest taste, and (notwithstanding an assumed English ‘tournure’) a perfect absence of that heaviness and pedantry, of which English fashionables can never divest themselves, constituted the sole claims to pre-eminence. But it is precisely because he is too far removed from the English, both by that native amiability which continually gains an involuntary conquest over his ‘Anglo manie,’ and by his German cordiality, that he excites their envy rather than their admiration; and though ‘recherche’ by most, because he is the fashion, remains a strange meteor in their system, whom they attack where they can, and whom, at all events, they cannot take to their hearts as they do their own Jupiter Ammon, nor acknowledge in him ‘autorité sans replique’ with that blind submission they pay to their Autocratess. Perhaps the wife of the ambassador might easily have played the part of that lady, whom she excels in beauty as well as in youth; and for a time the chances stood equal between them; but she was too heedless, too natural and good-tempered to obtain a definitive conquest. However high therefore be her place in the fashionable world, her rival has unquestionably achieved the highest. Nobody who knows the causes will think the loser the less amiable.
Among the other female rulers of the first category, I must mention one or two whom no one may omit who seeks entrance into the sanctuary. At the very top, is a no longer young but still lovely Countess; one of the very few Englishwoman of whom it can be said, that she possesses a perfect, and truly distinguished ‘tournure.’ With her natural gifts she would, in any other country, have been thoroughly amiable and delightful; but here none can escape the deadening impress of that spirit of caste, so utterly blighted to all that is lovely and loving in the human heart. * * *
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In the age of innocence of the English world of fashion, when the natives as yet were fain to copy continental manners, and had not attained to that independence which now asserts its claim to serve as model to other countries, a Dandy governed by means of his coat; and the celebrated Brummel tyrannized over town and country, by this simple instrument, during long years of glory. But this is no longer the case: the sublime Exclusive, on the contrary, affects a certain inattention to his dress, which is almost always alike; and is quite above running after or inventing new fashions: his dress is at most distinguished only for exquisite neatness and delicacy of texture. Far other qualities are now necessary to constitute a man of fashion. He must, as formerly in France, have the reputation of a heartless seducer, and be a dangerous man. But as, with all the good-will in the world, it is not so easy for men of graceless manners and invincible awkwardness to rival the brilliant charm and captivating address of the Frenchman of the ‘Vieille Cour,’ it is necessary, like Tartuffe, to play the soft and insidious hypocrite; with the subdued voice which is now the fashion, and false words, to make a way in the dark to unprincipled acts; such as false play, or the ‘gulling’ of a novice in every species of sport, in which so many young Englishmen find despair and suicide, where they sought recreation and excitement;—where these arts are not applicable, to seek, by all sorts of intrigue, to destroy the fortune and reputation of those who stand in their way, or, at the least, to rob them of all influence in exclusive society.
He who is intimately acquainted with England’s dark side, will not accuse me of exaggeration in this description. * * *
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Let a man’s moral and intellectual qualities be what they may, if he is the fashion, he can say or do nothing that will not be received with admiration and applause. His words are oracles; his wit must be exquisite, since he has received his patent for it from fashionable society; and where Fashion speaks, the free Englishman is a slave. Besides, the vulgar feel that in all matters of art, talent or taste, they are no very competent judges; they therefore think it safer blindly to applaud a ‘bon mot’ when they see it has made their superiors laugh; or to repeat an opinion which has proceeded from privileged lips:—just as the public were in the third heavens with ecstasy for a whole winter at a party of Tyrolese ballad-singers, and rained down money, which the green butcher-family pocketed with a laugh. * * *
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