What, American aristocracy?
Yes, certainly.
I assure you that there exist, in America, social sanctuaries into which it is more difficult to penetrate than into the most exclusive mansions of the Faubourg Saint-Germain or of Mayfair and Belgravia.
There are in Philadelphia; in Beacon Street, Boston; in Washington Square (north side), New York; in Virginia; in Canal Street (right side), New Orleans, Americans who look upon common mortals with much more pity and contempt than the Montmorencys of France or the Howards of England.
Americans, not having any king to give them titles of nobility, have created an aristocracy for themselves. This aristocracy boasts as yet no dukes, marquises, earls, or barons, but the blue blood is there, it appears—Dutch blood—and that is sufficient.
When a European nobleman arrives in the States, the American aristocracy leave cards upon him at the hotel where he has alighted. He may perhaps be personally known to none; but all nobilities are kindred everywhere—it is an act of international courtesy. The European nobleman, who often goes to America for a dowried wife, is much obliged to them, and returns all the visits paid him.
A New York lady, who is quite an authority upon such matters, told me one day that Society in New York was composed of only four hundred persons. Outside this company of élite, all Philistines.
Money or celebrity may allow you to enter into this charmed circle, but you will never belong to it. You will be in it, but not of it. The lady in question entered also into very minute details on the subject of what she called the difference between "Society people" and "people in Society"; but, in spite of all her explanations, I confess I did not seize all the delicate nuances she tried to convey. All I clearly understood was that the aristocracy of birth exists in America, not only in the brains of those who form part of it, but in the eyes of their compatriots.
The desire to establish an aristocracy of some sort was bound to haunt the breast of the Americans; it was the only thing that their dollars seemed unable to procure them.