Perhaps I have seen things just a little vaguely owing to American cocktails. We can't make cocktails in England as they do in America, and that is a fact. The very names given to them here are attractive: Jack Rose, Clover Club, Manhattan, Bronx, and numerous others. They are well decorated, too.
The really exciting time at a country club is on Saturday night. In Bethlehem where there are no theatres, all the fashionable folk motor out to the country club for dinner. Generally the dancing space is fairly crowded and a little irritating for the débutantes. Still they are quite good-natured about it and only smile when a large freight locomotive in the form of mama and papa collides with them.
After about fifteen minutes, while one is eating an entrée, the music starts, and if your partner consents, you get up and dance for about ten minutes and then return to the entrée, now cold. This goes on during the whole dinner. I wonder if it aids digestion.
After dinner we all leave the tables and spread ourselves about the large rooms. The ladies generally sit about, and the men go downstairs. This presents possibilities. However, most of one's time is spent upstairs with the women folk. Dancing generally goes on until about midnight, and then the more fashionable among us go into the house of a couple of bachelors. Here we sit about and have quite diverting times. Finally at about two o'clock we adjourn to our respective homes and awake in the morning a little tired. However, this is compensated for by the cocktail party the next day.
What pitfalls there are for the unwary!
One night, during a party at the club, a very great friend of mine asked me to come over to her house at noon the next day. I took this, in my ignorance, to be an invitation to lunch, and the next morning I called her up and said that I had forgotten at what time she expected me to lunch. "Come along at twelve o'clock, Mac," she replied. I found crowds of people there and wondered how they were all going to be seated at the table, and then I understood. I tried to leave with the others at about twelve forty-five, but my hostess told me that she expected me to stay for lunch. Of course, she had to do this, owing to my mentioning lunch when I called up. Still it was a little awkward.
About cocktail parties—well, I don't quite know. I rather suspect that they are bad things. They always seem to remind me of the remark in the Bible about the disciples when they spake with tongues and some one said: "These men are wine bibbers." I rather think that cocktail parties are a form of wine bibbing. Still they play an important part in the life of some people, and I had better tell you about them. As a matter of fact, quite a large number of people at a cocktail party don't drink cocktails at all, and in any case, they are taken in a very small shallow glass. The sort one usually gets at a cocktail party is the Bronx or Martini variety. The former consists, I believe, largely of gin and orange juice and has a very cheering effect. People mostly walk about and chat about nothing in particular. They are generally on their way home from church and nicely dressed.
It is unpleasant to see girls drinking cocktails. Our breeding gives us all a certain reserve of strength to stick to our ideals. A few cocktails, sometimes even one, helps to knock this down and the results are often regrettable. People talk about things sometimes that are usually regarded as sacred and there are children about, for the next in power after madame in an American household is the offspring of the house. Still quite nice American girls drink cocktails, although nearly always their men folk dislike it. In Bethlehem, however, I have never seen a girl friend drink anything stronger than orangeade. That is what I love about my friends in Bethlehem. Some of them have had a fairly hard struggle to get on. They don't whine about it or even boast, but they are firmly decided in their effort to give their daughters every opportunity to be even more perfect gentlewomen than they are naturally. Still some quite young American girls drink cocktails and then become quite amusing and very witty, and one decides that they are priceless companions, but out of the question as wives.
When a Britisher marries a French or a Spanish girl, there are often difficulties before she becomes accustomed to her new environment. Neither American people nor English people expect any difficulties at all when their children intermarry. And yet they do occur, and are either humourous or tragic, quite often the latter. So I would say to the Britisher, if you ever marry an American girl, look out. She will either be the very best sort of wife a man could possibly have, or she will be the other thing. It will be necessary for you to humour her as much as possible. Like a horse with a delicate mouth, she requires good hands. Don't marry her unless you love her. Don't marry her for her money, or you will regret it. She is no fool and she will expect full value for all she gives. The terrible thing is that she may believe you to be a member of the aristocracy, and she will expect to go about in the very best society in London. If you are not a member of the smart set and take her to live in the country she may like it all right, but the chances are that she will cry a good deal, get a bad cold, which will develop into consumption, and possibly die if you don't take her back to New York. She will never understand the vicar's wife and the lesser country gentry, and she will loathe the snobbishness of some of the county people. In the process, she will find you out, and may heaven help you for, as Solomon said: "It is better to live on the housetop than inside with a brawling woman," and she will brawl all right. I have heard of some bitter experiences undergone by young American women.
There is, of course, no reason in the world why an English fellow should not marry an American girl if he is fond of her and she will have him. But it is a little difficult. Sometimes a Britisher arrives here with a title and is purchased by a young maiden with much money, possibly several millions, and he takes her back to Blighty. Some American girls are foolish. The people perhaps dislike her accent and her attitude towards things in general. He does not know it, of course, but she has not been received by the very nicest people in her own city, not because they despise her, but merely because they find the people they have known all their lives sufficient. You see it is a little difficult for the child. In America she has been, with the help of her mother perhaps, a social mountaineer. Social mountaineering is not a pleasing experience for anyone, especially in America, but we all do it a little, I suppose. It is a poor sort of business and hardly worth while. When this child arrives in England she may be definitely found wanting in the same way that she may have been found wanting in American society, and she is naturally disappointed and annoyed. When annoyed she will take certain steps that will shock the vicar's wife, and possibly she will elope with the chauffeur, all of which will be extremely distressing, though it will be the fellow's own fault. Of course, she may love him quite a lot, but she will probably never understand him. I am not sure that she will always be willing to suffer. Why should she?