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Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Book and heart: essays on literature and life, Chapter 18: the future of polite society (search)
d have said that in only one of these three cities-Philadelphia — has the smart set any particular connection with old families or gives itself any concern about them. The utmost that it does is to draw a feeble line at the recognized occupations of fathers, while the occupation or social position of the grandfather is pretty thoroughly ignored. Given a fortune, with a reasonable amount of tact, and one generation, at most two, can accomplish the rest. There is a lingering rumor that at Newport a rich dealer in patent medicines was for years successfully kept from buying land on the fashionable avenue; but if so, the exclusion was in itself an absurdity, like those attempted distinctions between wholesale and retail trade. Surely it is absurd to assume it as plebeian to sell tape by the piece, and not plebeian to sell it by the thousand pieces; to call it discreditable when a fortune is made by a medicine, and not when it is made by hotel-keeping or laying water-pipes or carrying
Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Book and heart: essays on literature and life, Chapter 19: the problem of drudgery (search)
golfing; and aside from this, the mere social duties, when taken at their highest, have drudgery enough to frighten any innocent rustic, and often to discourage the votaries themselves. Where is social pleasure carried to a higher point than in Newport?-yet one of the very ladies occupied in it said to me some years ago, It takes my four daughters and myself every atom of our time and strength, from day to day, simply to keep up with our social obligations; this lasts all summer, and then we ragined in the way of conversation that is more vapid than the talk which may easily go on for a whole evening at a club of fashionable men! My most vivid memory of social drudgery goes back to an evening when I happened in at the chief club in Newport, and three or four gentlemen of this stamp were debating the question of servants' liveries. Two hours later I chanced to look in again, and they were still at it, a little refreshed by the suggestion of a change of tailors. They were all, I b
Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Book and heart: essays on literature and life, Chapter 27: the antidote to money (search)
e been regarded at home as rather vulgar and pushing, to get at least far enough in the English circles of fashion to see and describe the grandest functions. How the knowledge is obtained is not the question. Like the snubbed man of the world in the inimitable Dolly Dialogues, these witnesses may at least claim that if they do not meet Lord Mickleham socially they know his valet. Even in the smaller field of America it is known that old John, the black head-waiter at the Ocean House, in Newport, used to furnish regular material for certain lady journalists by his hints of conversations overheard, reminiscences of family history, and even descriptions of dress. In a more highly developed fashionable life in England, John appears in the form of some impoverished cousin of a countess, or one of those led-captains of whom we read in old English novels. As our war correspondents during the Civil War used frankly to avow that they picked up incidents from deserters or intelligent con