Meanwhile kangaroos engage in a boxing match, hippopotami splash most of the reservoir over the “South Sea Girls”; the Monte Carlo Casino presents its hoary tables as background for the “Dance of the Jeunesse Dorée,” and Maoris from New Zealand give an imitation of an army of tarantulas writhing from one side of the stage to another. The climax is a stupendous tableau en pyramide of fountains, marble staircases, gilded thrones, and opalescent canopies; built up, banked, and held together by girls of every costume and complexion. Nothing succeeds in New York without girls; the more there are, the more triumphant the success. So the Hippodrome, being in every way triumphant, has mountains of them: tall girls and little girls, Spanish girls, Japanese girls, Hindoo girls and French girls; and at the very top of the peak, where the “spot” points its dazzling ray, the American girl, wrapped in the Stars and Stripes of her apotheosis. Ecco! The last word has been said; applause thunders to the rafters; the flag is unfurled, to show the maiden in the victorious garb of a Captain of the Volunteers; and the curtain falls amid the lusty strains of the national anthem. Everybody goes home happy, and the box office nets five thousand dollars. They know the value of patriotism, these good Hebrews.
This sentiment, always near the surface with Americans, grows deeper and more fervid as it localizes; leading to a curiously intense snobbism on the part of one section of the country towards another. Thus New York society sniffs at Westerners; let them approach the citadel ever so heavily armed with gold mines, they have a long siege before it surrenders to them. On the other hand, the same society smiles eagerly upon Southerners of no pocket-books at all; and feeds and fêtes and fawns upon them, because they are doomed, the minute their Southern accent is heard, to come of “a good old family.” The idea of a decayed aristocracy in two-hundred-year-old America is not without comedy, but in the States Southerners are taken very solemnly, by themselves as by everyone else.
My friend of the æsthetic antipathy to books (really a delightful person) is a Southerner—or was, before gathered into the fold of the New York Four Hundred. She apologized for taking me to the Horse Show (which she thought might amuse me, however), because “no one goes any more. It’s all Middle West and commuters.” For the benefit of those imperfect in social geography I must explain that Middle West is the one thing worse than West, and that commuters are those unfortunates without the sacred pale, who are forced to journey to and from Manhattan by ferries or underground tubes. They are the butt of comic newspaper supplements, topical songs, and society witticisms; also the despised and over-charged “out-of-town customers” of the haughty Fifth Avenue importer.
For the latter (a phenomenon unique to New York) has her own system of snobbism, quite as elaborate as that of her proudest client. They are really a remarkable mixture of superciliousness and abject servility, these Irish and Hebrew “Madame Celestes,” whose thriving establishments form so conspicuous a part of the important avenue. As exponents of the vagaries of American democracy, they deserve a paragraph to themselves.
Each has her rococo shop, and her retinue of mannequin assistants garbed in the extreme of fashion; each makes her yearly or bi-yearly trip to Paris, from which she returns with strange and bizarre creations, which she assures her patrons are the “only thing” being worn by Parisiennes this season. Now even the untutored male knows that there is never an “only thing” favoured by the capricious and original Parisienne; but that she changes with every wind, and in all seasons wears everything under the sun (including ankle-bracelets and Cubist hats), provided it has the one hall-mark: chic.
But Madame New York meekly accepts the Irish lady’s dictum, and arrays herself accordingly—with what result of extravagant monotony we shall see later on. Enough for the present that she is absolutely submissive to the vulgar taste and iron decrees of the rubicund “Celeste” from Cork, and that the latter alternately condescends and grovels to her, in a manner amazing to the foreigner, who may be looking on. Yet on second thoughts it is quite explicable: after the habit of all Americans, native or naturalized, “Celeste” cannot conceal that she considers herself “as good as” anyone, if not a shade better than some. At the same time, again truly American, she worships the dollars madame represents (and whose aggregate she can quote to a decimal), and respects the lady in proportion. Hence her bewildering combinations of “certainly, Madame—it shall be exactly as Madame orders,” with “Oh, my dear, I wouldn’t have that! Why, girlie, that on you with your dark skin would look like sky-blue on an Indian! But, see, dear, here’s a pretty pink model”—etc., etc.
And so it continues, unctuous deference sandwiched between endearments and snubs throughout the entire conference of shopkeeper and customer; and the latter takes it all as a matter of course, though, if her own husband should venture to disagree with her on any point of judgment, she would be furious with him for a week. When I commented to one lady on these familiar blandishments and criticisms of shop people in New York, she said indulgently: “Oh, they all do it. They don’t mean anything; it’s only their way.”
Yet I have heard that same lady hotly protest against the wife of a Colorado silver magnate (whom she had known for years) daring to address her by her Christian name. “That vulgar Westerner!” she exclaimed; “the next thing she’ll be calling me dear!”
Democracy remains democracy as long as it cannot possibly encroach upon the social sphere; the moment the boundary is passed, however, and the successful “climber” threatens equal footing with the grande dame on the other side, herself still climbing in England or Europe, anathema! The fact is, that Americans, like all other very young people, seek to hide their lack of assurance—social and otherwise—by an aggressive policy of defense which they call independence; but which is verily snobbism of the most virulent brand. From the John Browns to the multimillionaires with daughters who are duchesses, they are intent on emphasizing their own position and its privileges; unconscious that if they themselves were sure of it so would be everyone else.
But inevitably the actors must stumble and stammer, and insert false lines, before finally they shall “feel” their parts, and forge ahead to the victory of finished performance.