The decline and fall of Almack’s was partly caused by the ‘favouritism’ which not only kept the place exclusive, but excluded more than was politic. The only chance for the continued existence of such an institution is that it should be constantly enlarging its boundaries, just as the only chance for the continued existence of such an aristocracy as ours is that it should be always admitting new members. Somehow the kind of small circle which shall include only the crème de la crème is always falling to pieces. We hear of a club which is to contain only the very noblest, but in a year or two it has ceased to exist, or it is like all other clubs. Moreover, a great social change has now passed over the country. The stockbroker, to speak in allegory, has got into Society. Respect for Rank, fifty years ago universal and profound, is rapidly decaying. There are still many left who believe in some kind of superiority by Divine Right and the Sovereign’s gift of Rank, even though that Rank be but ten years old, and the grandfather’s shop is still remembered. We do not pretend to believe any longer that Rank by itself makes people cleverer, more moral, stronger, more religious, or more capable; but some of us still believe that, in some unknown way, it makes them superior. These thinkers are getting fewer. And the decay of agriculture, which promises to continue and increase, assists the decay of Respect for Rank, because such an aristocracy as that of these islands, when it becomes poor, becomes contemptible.
The position of women, social and intellectual, has wholly changed. Nothing was heard then of women’s equality, nothing of woman suffrage; there were no women on Boards, there were none who lectured and spoke in public, there were few who wrote seriously. Women regarded themselves, and spoke of themselves, as inferior to men in understanding, as they were in bodily strength. Their case is not likely to be understated by one of themselves. Hear, therefore, what Mrs. John Sandford—nowadays she would have been Mrs. Ethel Sandford, or Mrs. Christian-and maiden-name Sandford—says upon her sisters. It is in a book called ‘Woman in her Social and Domestic Character.’
‘There is something unfeminine in independence. It is contrary to Nature, and therefore it offends. A really sensible woman feels her dependence; she does what she can, but she is conscious of inferiority, and therefore grateful for support.’ The italics are mine. ‘In everything that women attempt they should show their consciousness of dependence.... They should remember that by them influence is to be obtained, not by assumption, but by a delicate appeal to affection or principle. Women in this respect are something like children—the more they show their need of support, the more engaging they are. The appropriate expression of dependence is gentleness.’ The whole work is executed in this spirit, the keynote being the inferiority of woman. Heavens! with what a storm would such a book be now received!
In the year 1835 Herr Räumer, the German historian, visited England, and made a study of the English people, which he afterwards published. From this book one learns a great deal concerning the manners of the time. For instance, he went to a dinner-party given by a certain noble lord, at which the whole service was of silver, a silver hot-water dish being placed under every plate; the dinner lasted until midnight, and the German guest drank too much wine, though he missed ‘most of the healths.’ It was then the custom at private dinner-parties to go on drinking healths after dinner, and to sit over the wine till midnight. He goes to an ‘At Home’ at Lady A.’s. ‘Almost all the men,’ he tells us, ‘were dressed in black coats, black or coloured waistcoats, and black or white cravats.’ Of what colour were the coloured waistcoats, and of what colour the coats which were not black, and how were the other men dressed? Perhaps one or two may have been Bishops in evening dress. Now the evening dress of a Bishop used to be blue. I once saw a Bishop dressed all in blue—he was a very aged Bishop, and it was at a City Company’s dinner—and I was told it had formerly been the evening dress of Bishops, but was now only worn by the most ancient among them. Herr Räumer mentions the ‘countless’ carriages in Hyde Park, and observes that no one could afford to keep a carriage who had not 3,000l. a year at least. And at fashionable dances he observes that they dance nothing but waltzes. The English ladies he finds beautiful, and of the men he observes that the more they eat and drink the colder they become—because they drank port, no doubt, under the influence of which, though the heart glows more and more, there comes a time when the brow clouds, and the speech thickens, and the tongue refuses to act.
The dinners were conducted on primitive principles. Except in great houses, where the meat and game were carved by the butler, everything was carved on the table. The host sat behind the haunch of mutton, and ‘helped’ with zeal; the guests took the ducks, the turkey, the hare, and the fowls, and did their part, conscious of critical eyes. A dinner was a terrible ordeal for a young man who, perhaps, found himself called upon to dissect a pair of ducks. He took up the knife with burning cheeks and perspiring nose; now, at last, an impostor, one who knew not the ways of polite society, would be discovered; he began to feel for the joints, while the cold eyes of his hostess gazed reproachfully upon him—ladies, in those days, knew good carving, and could carve for themselves. Perhaps he had, with a ghastly grin, to confess that he could not find those joints. Then the dish was removed and given to another guest, a horribly self-reliant creature, who laughed and talked while he dexterously sliced the breast and cut off the legs. If, in his agony, the poor wretch would take refuge in the bottle, he had to wait until some one invited him to take wine—horrible tyranny! The dinner-table was ornamented with a great épergne of silver or glass; after dinner the cloth was removed, showing the table, deep in colour, lustrous, well waxed; and the gentlemen began real business with the bottle after the ladies had gone.
WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY
Very little need be said about the Court. It was then in the hands of a few families. It had no connection at all with the life of the country, which went on as if there were no Court at all. It is strange that in these fifty years of change the Court should have altered so little. Now, as then, the Court neither attracts, nor attempts to attract, any of the leaders in Art, Science, or Literature. Now, as then, the Court is a thing apart from the life of the country. For the best class of all, those who are continually advancing the country in science, or keeping alight the sacred lamp of letters, who are its scholars, architects, engineers, artists, poets, authors, journalists, who are the merchant adventurers of modern times, who are the preachers and teachers, the Court simply does not exist. One states the fact without comment. But it should be stated, and it should be clearly understood. The whole of those men who in this generation maintain the greatness of our country in the ways where alone greatness is desirable or memorable, except in arms, the only men of this generation whose memories will live and adorn the Victorian era, are strangers to the Court. It seems a great pity. An ideal Court should be the centre of everything—Art, Letters, Science, all.
As for the rest of society—how the people had drums and routs and balls; how they angled for husbands; how they were hollow and unnatural, and so forth—you may read about it in the pages of Thackeray. And I, for one, have never been able to understand how Thackeray got his knowledge of these exclusive circles. Instead of dancing at Almack’s he was taking his chop and stout at the Cock; instead of gambling at Crockford’s he was writing ‘copy’ for any paper which would take it. When and where did he meet Miss Newcome and Lady Kew and Lord Steyne? Perhaps he wrote of them by intuition, as Disraeli wrote the ‘Young Duke.’ ‘My son, sir,’ said the elder Disraeli proudly, ‘has never, I believe, even seen a Duke.’
One touch more. There is before me a beautiful, solemn work, one in which the writer feels his responsibilities almost too profoundly. It is on no less important a subject than Etiquette, containing Rules for the Conduct of Life on the most grave and serious occasions. I permit myself one or two extracts:—