The world without is apt to confound reserve and distance among the great, with pride and insensibility: even those who, admitted by sufferance to fashionable circles, behold the peculiar charm of high life through a wintry atmosphere: the free and unrestrained converse of men of fashion with their equals, none but themselves can know, and none but themselves describe.
Their habit of living, among themselves, is generally simple, and devoid of extravagance or ostentation: they have the best of every thing it is true, but then they have all the advantages of unbounded competition. and unlimited credit: they pay when they think proper, but no tradesman ever dares venture to ask them for money: such as have the bad taste to "dun" are "done:" the patient and long-suffering find their money "after many days." Their amusements among themselves are inexpensive, almost to meanness: the subscription to Almacks, that paradise of exclusives, and envy of the excluded, amounts to not more than half a-guinea a ball, if so much: a stall at the opera costs a young man of fashion, for the season, forty, fifty, or sixty pounds, according to position: for this he is entitled to an ivory ticket, which, when he does not feel inclined to go himself, he can transfer for the evening to another. If he have the misfortune to be a younger brother, many little windfalls come to his share, the results of his relationship. He has an apartment at his elder brother's town-house, or he resides with the dowager, or with a maiden aunt; somebody keeps his cab horse, and some other body keeps the saddle-horse that Lady Mary or Jack Somebody gave him; his "tiger" has the run of all his friends' kitchens as a matter of course, and, as a matter of course, himself has two or three invitations a-day during the season; though, like other poor men, he prefers dining independently at his club. He is on very good terms with the "girls" of his set, and is allowed a little innocent flirtation, because he is known to have tact enough not to compromise himself or them by falling in love, or paying "ridiculous" addresses: although a little "fast" perhaps, he is perfectly safe, and is on good terms with every body except his eldest brother: he is the idol of countesses-dowager, who hand him a few hundreds whenever he is short, pay his debts for him—give him good advice, and call him "Freddy dear:" in short, although he has nothing, excepting his boot-hooks, that he can possibly call his own, he is a merry, good-natured, honest, harmless fellow, a favourite with every body, and envied for his light-heartedness even by his more fortunate elder brother.
In a book published some five-and-thirty years ago, is an account of the then prevailing method of killing a fashionable day: as the pursuit of inanity and folly has a tedious sameness about it, this picture will answer, with a few variations, for the man of fashion of to-day.
"About twelve, he (the man of fashion) rises, lolls upon a sofa, skims the newspaper, and curses its stupidity. He is particularly angry if he does not find in it a paragraph which he sent to the agent of a fashionable newspaper, generally the Morning Post, who lives by procuring such sort of intelligence, containing an account of his having dined at some titled man's table the day before, with whom, if he has no rank himself, he is particularly anxious to mingle. After swallowing several cups of tea and cocoa, and slices of foreign sausages and fowls, he assumes his riding coat, and sallies out to his stables to inspect his horses, and chat with his coachman and grooms.
"Having finished this review and audience, he orders his curricle, and, followed by a couple of grooms, he dashes through most of the principal streets, and calls upon the most celebrated coach and harness makers; at the latter he is shown several new bits for his approbation. He then proceeds to his breeches-maker, thence to Tattersall's, where he is sure to meet a great number of friends, with whom he kills another hour discussing the merits of the different animals he meets with there. These important duties being done, he strolls to an exhibition, or to a print-shop, and looks over a portfolio of caricatures; thence he keeps on moving to a fashionable hotel, to take white spruce beer(!) and sandwiches; here, after arranging his parties for the evening, be returns home to dress. After looking over the cards which have been left for him, he proceeds to his toilette with his valet, and is dressed about seven, when his chariot is at the door, and he drives either to some family to dinner, or to the hotel he visited in the morning, when he perhaps formed a party of four. At ten o'clock he enters the Opera, and like a butterfly moves from box to box; thence behind the scenes; after which he proceeds to one or two routs, or some fashionable gaming-house, and about four is in bed, to recruit himself for a repetition of the same course the next day.
"These loungers have a phraseology peculiar to themselves. A short time since, if one of them was asked how he was, the answer would have been, 'we are in force to-day;' if his wife was enquired after, 'she is in high preservation;' if asked how often he had been at the opera, 'it is my second opera.' They also say, perhaps, speaking of some illustrious hero, 'he's a fine brave fellow, but he ties his handkerchief most shockingly.' I also remember being one day in Hyde Park, when a gentleman rode up to one of these loungers, and after exchanging salutations, the former said to the latter, I wish much to have the pleasure of seeing you—are you engaged next Wednesday? Upon which the other turned round to a little half starved groom, and said, 'John, am I engaged next Wednesday?'
"The women of fashion," observes this writer, "are just as great and as insipid idlers, in their way, as are the male triflers. They seldom walk in the streets, but are almost always cooped up in their carriages, driving about the streets, and leaving their cards at the houses of their friends, whom they never think of seeing, although they may be at home at the time; thence they proceed to the most expensive jewellers, where they order a piece of plate or a trinket; thence to some fashionable milliner."
This picture is not altogether like, but some of the features may certainly be easily reorganized; if we substitute sherry, a chop, and a club in Pall-Mall, for white spruce beer, sandwiches, and a tavern; replacing the curricle and footman by a cab and tiger, the remainder, with trivial alterations, may stand good of the fashionable idler of to-day, as of him of the last century.
In childhood, nay, even in infancy, for all I can see to the contrary, the physique of persons of fashion is sufficiently distinctive and characteristic of the class. If you walk in the parks and gardens, and notice these young thoroughbreds exercising under the care of their nurses, their tutors, and their nursery governesses, you will be perfectly convinced that they are as easily to be distinguished in all their points and paces from the children of the mobility, as is a well-blooded Arabian from a Suffolk punch.
The small oval head, clustered with rippling ringlets, as Alfred Jennyson calls them; the clear laughing eye, the long fair neck, the porcelain skin, warmed with the tenderest tinge of pink, so transparent withal that you almost see the animal spirit careering within; the drooping shoulder, the rounded bust, clean limbs, well-turned ankle, fine almost to a fault, the light springy step, the graceful easy carriage, the absence of sheepishness or shyness, an air cheerful without noise, a manner playful without rudeness, and you have the true son or daughter of the Englishman of fashion.