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Tous les autres exemplaires originaux sont filmds en commenpant par la premidre page qui comporte une empreinte d'impression ou d'illustration et en terminant par la dernidre page qui comporte une telle empreinte. Un des symboles suivants apparaitra sur la dernidre image de chaque microfiche, selon le cas: le symbole — *- signifie "A SUIVRE", le symbole V signifie "FIN". Les cartes, planches, tableaux, etc., peuvent etre filmds d des taux de reduction diff^rents. Lorsque le document est trop grand pour Stre reproduit en un seul clich6, il est filmS d partir de Tangle sup6rieur gauche, de gauche d droite, et de haut en bas, en prenant le nombre d'images n^cessaire. Les diagrammes suivants illustrent la mdthode. 1 2 3 32X 7^ Ju ^- y^ / yU--^. / * ■ • H SOCIETY TYPES \ « ■r . SOCIETY TYPES ' By KO-KO i % TORONTO GEORGE N. MORANG & COMPANY, Limited 1899 Entered according to Act of Parliament of Canada, in the year one thousand eight hundred and ninety-nine, by George N. Morang 8c Company, Limited, in the Office of the Minister of Agriculture. TO THE MAN AND THE WOMAN TO WHOM HE OWES THE MOST THESE SKETCHES ARE DEDICATED BY KO KO CONTENTS The Patroness The Beauty The Gossip .. The Widow The Guest .. The Old Maid .. The Gentlewoman The Self-made Man The Bachelor The Young Man The Young Girl .. The Clubman . . The Parson . Unpleasant People • • • • • • • t • t • • t • • • • I • I ft • • • • « 4 • • • « • PAGE 9 ai .. 27 33 .. 39 47 •• 55 63 .. 71 79 .. 87 95 . 103 ( SOCIETY TYPES I.— THE PATRONESS I NDER the patronage of" is an addition to many a programme ; the same words might as well be written on many an invitation card to a fashionable function. It isn't always one's hostess who is the moving power in the ball, the dinner, the afternoon reception. The affair is so plainly under the patronage of that old lady in the thin black satin, with ugly old family jewels on her neck and arms, or that fussy wiry woman who is here, there, and everywhere at the 9 lO SOCIETY TYPES same time, or that very great lady indeed who stands beside the hostess while she receives, and to whom the guests often give the first hand-shakes and smiles. She looks so much as if she expected it ! I wonder how a hostess feels at her own tea under the patronage of some other woman ? True, that other woman got you and me to call on the hostess ; that other woman drove in the hostess's carriage, ordered the hostess's servants about until they openly defied her, and left, with tears for their mistress, whom they adored, and curses upon the patroness, whom they detested. That patroness took possession of the card salver, and divided its contents into three piles. The first she called probable, the second possible, and the third lay where they fell. It wasn't necessary to acquaint the hostess with the fact that they were impossible. The way the patroness forgot them altogether was conclusive. After the patroness went home (in the carriage, and having dined exceedingly well) the hostess gathered up those cards and spent an un- happy hour over them. THE PATRONESS II There were addresses on back streets on them ; many were written ones ; some in dainty, old-fashioned handwriting. There was her old governess; her mother's old friend (in the grocery business) ; her own school chums, some of them married to rich shopkeepers, some of them struggling along with abundant progeny and a tendency to wear woollen gloves on cold days. There was the wife of a great manufacturer (how her face burned as she remembered the way the patroness had focussed her lorgnette on that one), and the poor little girl who had married the curate on six hundred a year, and the tailor's wife who used to reside in the other half of the house down town, and who had taught her much housekeeping lore in days not so far gone by. The patroness had positively scolded the hostess's little daughter for stopping the carriage and gathering in two of the tailor's daughters and driving them, according to their rapturous bidding, up and down the biggest thoroughfare at the noon hour. And, awed by her lorgnette and impressive voice, the child had been moved to promise m 12 SOCIETY TYPES never to do it again, and had revived and recanted with tears of rage an hour later. There is a patroness who is not rich ; ek bien ! if the hostess be rich, like the early- Christians, they have all things in common. Early in the morning the patroness telephones if she wishes to go to town, or to pay calls after luncheon, which simply means that the hostess calls for her in the carriage in good time. Ten to one she comes to luncheon ; if not, she stays for dinner, taking her pleasure freely and with a gentle insouciance unanswer- able and inevitable. She praises or blames the cook ; advises the hostess about her wines (and mind you, her advice is worth taking) ; condescendingly converses with the family ; reduces the cheeky son to atoms and papa to a cypher (v/hich she adds to her own sum total to increase its value) ; rebukes the maid gently in an undertone for some lapse of attention. La-la! She is great, the patroness who is not rich but enjoys the riches of her protegt^es ! The fussy patroness is a great bore to everyone. " Don't you find dear Mrs. looking lovely to-day ? " she purrs to you, as - M I THE PATRONESS 13 ti you glance at the hostess. " She always seems to me so rare a type. Don't you think so?" and before you can agree or disagree : " How do you like the drawing- room since it was re-decorated ? I had such a hunt with Mrs. for those portieres. Thought the room never would be ready for this crush ! Isn't it a charming tea ? Did you ever see more elderly men ? That's such a compliment, when the elderly men turn out ! " And so on, the same to everyone. There is a patroness who is frankly brutal. She tells you exactly how the land lies. " You see, he's in my husband's firm ; " (or regiment, or business, as the case may be). *' I have to take her about a bit until she knows people. Have driven all my people to call at the mouth of the gun. Believe she has social ambitions, as they are called. Im- becility, isn't it ? But I must see her through. There goes young Mrs. A . I must go and tell her to send this woman a card for her tea. And who is the secretary of the ball committee ? They had better get tickets for that ball, and hubby must take her into sup- 14 SOCIETY TYPES per. Poor dear! He shouldn't have had that new partner without making sure he was a bachelor. Goodness knows we have girls enough of our own to settle, and it would be nice to have a son-in-law in the firm." This may be brutal, but there is a touch of nature, too ! Sometimes the patroness goes back on her protegh^ finding the game not going to her liking, or seeing better fish to fry elsewhere. Then you see one of two results. If the protegee has taken hold judiciously she may be able to hang on alone, climb, struggle, wriggle her way up and on until she, too, may develop into a patroness. Or she may sink back into her former niche and eat humble pie before the tailor and the grocer and the draper's wives, and at all events feel that her home, her husband and her children are her own and may be managed as she sees fit. The loss of a patroness is not always an unmixed evil ! f : II.— THE BEAUTY. |OME score of years ago the appellation Professional Beauty vulgarized English society. It was about this time that the loveliness of Mrs. Langtry roused even the august pulses of the heir to the Throne of Great Britain to beat a somewhat recklessly gal- lant measure. The Pro- fessional Beauty was as short-lived as she vvas objectionable. The variety stage parodied her and her ways and she became impossible. A woman may be a Beauty these days and yet keep her portrait out of the shop windows, even though she fall into the snare of Mun- sefs or the Puritan, but to be a Beauty she must relinquish much that makes life pleas- ant. The Beauty feels her position ; some- times she rejoices, and oftener she mourns. IS "«.^^ SOCIETY TYPES She must give un =.11 u companions: other SLT "^ ^ '^°''^ "f her compan; and 'h '' ''"' "°f be of Wends s'he hk"' ab tt^ T '^^^ ''^'^ "- thronging of the silly set Thl ^ '^T" °'" "'e P'o't her, because she s a bLT" ^.''° ^'" «" -''ed to sit on the box seat :r ^'.^""' ^^ 's out ; she will have tn " ""^ ~ach the loge at the thltr^""'^^ '"" ^^"'^ of rave over her gowns in aVeTvofof r^^ "'" «'h'ch is almost immodest 1 '"'P"'"" 3m.te her ears as she ent" 'a dTa''^"' "'" or passes i„ and out of church 1"^^°™ starers will batten on i, "^""^ the - -tthehapp7cr:a,urr.Tr'^^^' «'- magnificent ^'^^e/raTneX^^^^^ """'"'' ^ wealth of shining hair o7 ^ ^^^"' °' a Piexion; she ha! thl„ llf •"'"^'"°"^ ^om- dance, and while on^hi';^""^^! ^''- know her are tellinJ I "'°'''^ ^ho 'lon't that she p Xt °*" "^'^ ^'° and has a savag^ temper.she TZ'^'"'' ''^'^ a microscopic critirfil T "''"8' ""der -<^ iealousj, eX terTd tT"' '^ '^"^>' married women who^e lo H ~'^""^^ "^ h-ing eyes in thit Lads a '.""°' ''^'^ neads, and stung by THE BEAUTY 17 the innuendoes of girls who feel themselves set aside by every false and fickle male who looks and longs as she goes by. There is no living creature who is bathed in venom after the sad fashion of the Beauty. Everyone interests themselves in her affairs. If she be single, she is engaged to at least a dozen men during the season ; if she be married, verily the scent is keener and the trail more eagerly followed. It is so easy to say things, and a shrug over the name of the husband may mean a volume ; a half-hour's quiet chat with a nice man is reported at all the clubs before noon next day ; a new jewel is gossiped about; a man who has been perforce snubbed by the patient Beauty for vinous gallantries prowls in and out, chagrined and vicious, whispering a word which grows and becomes a history! The unmarried Beauty is soon shopworn ; if she does not marry in her first or second season, she is (not unaccountably) pass^e. One has seen and heard so much of her that it seems those two years are ten! Sometimes she never marries, and one meets her in after years when her eyes have a network of wrinkles i8 SOCIETY TYPES around them, and a bone has become evident in front of each ear, and one says reminis- cently, " She was a Beauty ; she has traces of it yet. That was fifteen years ago." There is a popular feeling that a Beauty should marry well, but she seldom does so. The strapping young fellow who is her fitting mate goes cold at the sight of her lace and sickens at the swish of her silken skirts, and she knows it, and asks her mother to tell him she is to marry old Mr. Q, or addle-pated young Z, for she cannot quite undertake to ensure her voice its tone, or her cheek its color, while she tells him herself. Sometimes rich roii^ or golden goose does not come her way ; she always wears the laces and the silken skirts in hope, and sends the strapping youth white-faced away, and she races from winter ballroom to summer hotel piazza, and watches and waits, and perhaps accepts some- one with quite a modest rent roll, when her youth is over. Very few of the Beauties keep a natural and unconscious manner after a few months of celebrity. They harden, and a certain self-weariness, even self-scorn, grows into *< THE BEAUTY 19 their expression. The Married Beauty never retains her place if she falls into habits of maternity. One cannot sit on the box-seat and occupy the centre of a theatre loge under such conditions, conse- quently the family of the Married Beauty may always be counted on the first finger, if it be existent to be counted at all. Some- times there have been beautiful paintings of the Married Beauty, in full ball or dinner toilette, sitting beside the cradle of her infant treasure, or with the infant treasure's arms clasped tightly about her neck. These are fancy pictures. It never happens that the Beauty has time before the dinner to pensively muse over her sleeping treasure, and no treasure is awake at the hour a Beauty goes to a ball ; and moreover, fancy the ball-gown which has been mauled by a baby ! It is culpable to misrepresent things in such a manner. In her thorny path, (for even such roses as strew it seem more than half thorns), the Beauty meets all the weaker attributes of men, and all the wickedest meannesses of women. The world has no sense of her rights. Nature has done ^ 20 SOCIETY TYPES enough for her, so let man and civihzation even things up. She is a Beauty, therein Hes iier crime, and for that she must be punished. She appeals to the most pitiless part of man and woman ; she has no shield, as she walks her careful way, against the sword of desire or the barbed dart of envy. Even in her heyday there is a subtle pathos and a fearsome risk combined. If the heart of the Married Beauty's husband doth safely trust in her, she is at least spared the pang of querulous or causeless upbraidings. If she loves him, she has a little haven into which she can creep and be like a saint in a shrine. Then she is the Beauty of all Beauties and men bow before her. But she, like the crowned head, has many uneasy hours, if she be not exceptionally blessed ; she is apt to sicken of praise, to gird at flattery, and to be tempted to wish that some other woman had been born at the particular moment which caught the Graces in such a prodigal mood. i i I' III.— THE GOSSIP HEN the All Wise made man, he gave him two eyes, two ears, but only- one tongue, and," con- tinues the sage, "this was in order that he might see and hear twice as much as he told." But, nous avons change tout celd ! It is now the usage to tell not only twice, but a hundred times as much as one sees and hears. The perfect practice of this accom- plishment evolves the gossip, and the amount of envy, malice and all uncharitableness incorporated in the individual determines just how irrational, insatiable and damnable he or she will be. There is a harmless trifling gabble of w^ords, dealing with small matters, which passes by the name of gossip, but is no more the real thing than is a man's shadow a 21 22 SOCIETY TYPES man. Moreover, such gossip is not a gossip ; it is in the definite article that the deadliness lies. There is no sex distinction in the gossip, who is, male or female, equally- deadly and detestable. The gossip may ply a foul trade in the happiness and misery of men in the august precincts of the club or the scented silken-hung boudoir. He and she may spread their venom anony- mously by means of the penny-post, or by word of mouth, passed swiftly and sneakily from one to another, denied, refuted, proved a lie, and yet living, like the worm that it is, to crawl yet further afield. Only one tongue, yet it is more than enough to make two eyes stream tears and two ears burn with shame and rage, and misery unfathomable. The gossip puts on many a disguise to hide the vileness which would frighten a world into avoidance. Sometimes it is philanthropy, which would know all and have all known, that the just might be further justified and the evil punished ; sometimes it is sympathy that pretends to yearn over some misled or deceived creature ; sometimes, again, it is purity that is shocked at the wickedness THE GOSSIP 23 J of humanity, or justice that would gather statistics and evidence only to judge right- eously. Bah ! It is only the same old ghoul, gnawing at the bones of the soul of its fellow soul, drinking the life-blood of its fellow man, poisoning his breath with the foulness of its own. In every little social world the gossip has a place. He knows the lightness of this woman and the looseness of that man ; she knows what woman imbibes too freely and what girl is on the high road to a compro- mise ; what bachelor has an establishment unchronicled in the Blue Book, and what maid accepts gifts which never confess their donor. She knows the frailties of the hus- band and the concessions of the wife, and she freely gives to both their fitting object. He will whisper of confidences reposed in him by some addled toper ; she will tell of loathsome practices and hideous liaisons, if so be she can find a low person or a timid, horrified creature who will listen to her. To listen is to become in turn a gossip, for human nature is weak and prone to err, and what one_hears unlawfully one will repeat unworthily. The gossip is often a religious poser — then nothing aiBSi 24 SOCIETY TYPES this side of the infernal regions comes near his or her infamy. The gossip exacts secrecy, when she is doing her worst. " I wouldn't have you repeat it for the world," says she. " Of course, old man, this goes no further," says he. Just as rational, as they perfectly well know, would it be to let loose a rabid dog with the remark, " I sincerely trust you won't bite anybody." They want the vile story to fly ; if they did not, they wouldn't tell it. There is meanness un- speakable in the gossip, a meanness ignor- ing the ties of blood, of friendship, of gratitude. The gossip has lost honor, the foundation of character. " Let be ; 'tis so foul a thing the dogs will not touch it ! " says the outraged chevalier, as he dismisses a gossip. Even dogs, it seems, have a line to draw ! Yet, in high society, such a line may not be drawn. The gossip is, like the poor, ever with us. You and I, maybe, have escaped the befouling touch of its tongue by reason of being insignificant creatures, work- ingmen whose plain, sordid lives of toil and sleep leave no hours for dalliance, no leisure for drunkenness, no nights for bestiality. I \ Y THE GOSSIP 25 I (1 iT This is a heartsome and consoling thought and we must needs make the most of it. But let us go warily, else the forked tongue may torture even you and me. The gossip has dared to touch with a grimy finger the first woman in Europe ; the gossip has put a brand on the tender babe asleep in its cradle, on the gentle girl going smiling among the roses, on the bright youth, over- sensitive and over-proud, on the fair woman, on the anxious man, on the gray-haired and the sorrowful, for the gossip knows no such word as pity. He lounges in his club, whispering and insinuating ; she lolls in her carriage hatching her unsightly brood of scandals and destruction. The outraged world cannot flay him or burn her as they deserve. And they are dined, and wined, and lunched, and danced, for everyone dreads to overlook them ; they know such omission is paid for in heart's blood. Once in a while some man launches out, be he innocent or guilty ; seldomer, some woman lets loose her tongue and withers up a gossip, like the trash he or she is ; but generally the long-suffering, peccant, coward world cringes ^ 26 SOCIETY TYPES and dreads, and the gossip walks by unas- sailed. " I wouldn't be that woman and have such things said of me," cried a shocked listener, as the gossip finished the rending of a neighbor's reputation. "Say, rather," said a quiet voice, "you wouldn't be the woman who could say such things of another woman." ' IV.— THE WIDOW N one particular the weaker sex has dis- tinctly the advantage over its masters — no man can ever be a widow! True, he may be, and unhap- pily is occasionally, a widower, liable to be pitied or envied according to the point of view, but his state is not to be set forth as typical. Once in a blue moon a widower mourns artistically and attracts approving notice from society; oftener he stiffens his upper lip and resents any con- dolences or remarks on his affliction. He isn't picturesque; a black band on the hat, on the arm, a sombre tie and inky-tinted hand-wear sus^gest gruesomeness and are But study his triumphant 27 unbecominof. h 28 SOCIETY TYPES rival, the widow ! Plain, she may be, insignificant and dowdy, anything, she is transformed as soon as she dons the regu- lation garb of the forlorn and the bereaved. She does not become a society type in her first season, of course ; sometimes she retains her weeds and their fetching effect for years, going discreetly into society ; concerts are her pet diversion ; sometimes one sees the lovely, snowy, airy nothing of her headgear at the theatre ; sometimes she sits snuggled in her great veil at a lecture ; rarely she is taken in to dinner reverently, and her glass is specially kept under the butler's eye. Even he, man as he is, recognizes the subtle claim of a pair of lisse streamers. Man is a credu- lous animal ; the widow improves the fact. Tradition makes the widow an object of sympathy; a tenderhearted, dependent, help- less, sorrowing creature, sure to arouse a note of chivalry in the oldest spinnet of a man. And when she bravely braces up to join a dinner party or to take a hand at whist the great, protecting, masterful man is a footman at her elbow, a door-mat for her small feet ! V m A iMM^atamsitiMtitfm^ki. .ik< ii THE WIDOW 29 St. Paul, that observant bachelor, discrim- inated between widows and widows. Papa Weller, more self-preservative and more experienced in woman's way, lumped them in one broad " Beware ! " The society type reaps much harvest from the sanctity of the widow who is a " widow indeed ; " if she be not the rose, she at least wears rose leaves. There is a tradition that the widower who shows his sense of loss in the plainest manner is sure to console himself first. This isn't the way of the widow. When she intends to put a new king in the old king's seat, you may always detect it. A trifling anxiety, unrest and self-consciousness betray her design. She is crude in her plots — the widow ! She twitters when she ought to sigh, and she forgets how dignified she might be, if she chose. It is estimated that a homely widow may be as dignified as a countess, while for a handsome widow there is no limit, even in royalty, to the amount of " presence " her weeds allow. When the widow's soul revolts against her first habiliments of woe, she begins to " lighten." She goes to dinners in a black and white frock, the most fetching 30 SOCIETY TYPES frock on earth if well selected. Then she wears violets ; then she has a whole cascade of lavender ribbons and frills ; after that, the bloom is off the peach, she is no longer a widow through and through. Sometimes she takes advantage of her experience to tell curious stories, to pose as that most repulsive creature, a knowing woman, and she enjoys a tete-a-tete of scandal with the club bachelor, or an exchange of unholy anecdotes with the aging benedict, whose vest increases with his years, and who likes to take the " lightened " widow in to supper. They both get red in the face, not with blushes, but with champagne, and their voices are carefully lowered, for it would never do to talk as they are talking in tones calcu- lated to carry far. When the widow reaches this stage of degeneration, her chances of re-marriage are practically nil. She has become a t/pe not altogether desirable for a man to take to his bosom, but she is rather good fun, pour s'amuser. There is a spurious sort of an entity which pervades society in these days of gold seek- ing, which is known as the "grass" widow. m THE WIDOW 31 She is more to be commiserated with by the thoughtful observer than the Simon pure article. She is so accepted a type just now as to have given rise to the enquiry reported to have been made by a Senator at Washing- ton which made the people laugh. "Grass or grave?" asked the longheaded politician on being informed that his dinner partner was a widow. One does not accord to her the sympathy with the inevitable which goes to the widow, as one does not feel that pity for the sprained ankle which one accords to the amputated limb. Time will ameliorate her condition, whereas Time, man as he is, must find " another man" to uproot the weeds his scythe can onl)' prune down with a per- functory sweep, now and then. The widow has certain privileges. She can belong to the whist clubs, which taboo married couples (because life is short and war is unprofitable). She can go where and when she pleases unattended and unremarked. She is very seldom asked to be a chaperone, the young things being firmly and obstinately mistrustful of her. She can go further in a risky flirtation, and withdraw more successfully 32 SOCIETY TYPES than any other woman ; just a sif^h and a retreat behind her dignity will quench the greatest roiu^ as a chemical extinguisher puts out fire. If she have a family dependent upon her, she gains and holds positions no one would sustain such a woman in, were she not a widow. She " works " magnates on behalf of her boys, and gets her girls invited to the most desirable houses ; in the garb of a widow looking after a departed father's children, she is a private orphan asylum levying taxes on every well filled pocket and every kind heart. Nearly always the widow's family get on a deal better when decapitation has been performed. " Ah, my friend," she sighs, "you've never been a widow." With this last unspeakable advant- age over my sex, I reverently leave her for your consideration. V.~THE GUEST |T may have been possible something more than a decade ago for the guest to visit the hostess and silently steal away with no danger of becoming a society type. At pres- ent his or her arrival is heralded a week in ad- vance in the daily papers; appearances, titles, relationships, pedigrees, peculiarities, traits and achievements are freely enlarged upon ; the expected guest is advertised as fully as a new invention or a patent medicine ; there is a crow of satisfaction in print from "hosts of welcoming friends." As soon as the train arrives upon which the much-heralded visitor travels there are enumerated teas, dinners and luncheons given "in honor "of the visit 33 34 SOCIETY TYPES of Mrs. A. to Mrs. B., probably on the notion tlhit a poor excuse is better than n(3ne. H(jstesscs of whom one has never heard be- fore blossom out with afternoon receptions and evening card-parties, reaping a fleeting fame from their proud position, and rushing about with their guest in a gush of unwonted dissipations. One notices the air of patient endurance on the face of the quiet guest who comes from the country or some tranquil town, after she has been introduced to and shaken hands with by some hundred frivolous city folks. Her limbs ache, her head aches, she is weary, hungry and unutterably miser- able, the poor guest in whose honor the host- ess is spending time and temper and coin of the realm. The guest with smart clothing reflects glory on her hostess and is valued accordingly. Sometimes the hostess draws a long bow in her behalf. It is so easy to whisper small falsehoods touching her wealth, her accomplishments, her ability, and her standing in some other city. When the guest is a man the dinner generally supplants the afternoon tea as a means of distinguishing him over his fellows, and the tales may be THE GUEST 35 » varied by imaginary feats of valor and perils by land or sea. Lord, 'tis so easy to tell them ! When the tales may be strung on a title it is preferable. A colonel is good, a general better, a naval title is much thought of, and a few medals are of use. When a scion of aristocracy strikes the silly set there is always an immense furbish- ing up and airing of the whole stock in trade, especially if the scion be of the male persua- sion. The guest who has My Lord or My Lady as a manner of greeting from lesser fry, brings a kndos of large importance to his or her host and hostess. The host dresses care- fully to take My Lord to the club ; the host- ess receives indifferently invitations to bring My Lady to houses she would otherwise make happy haste to enter. Calm dignity and a pleased consciousness of added import- ance is the gift to the host from the passing sojourner whose name is found in Burke. Sometimes the guest is a devastator of friendship, and leaves track of ruined peace, and burning of jealousy, and thoughts of re- venge among the young folks. Everyone has heard tales from other girls of the shameless 36 SOCIETY TYPES hunting down of Lord A. by some girls ; the boys can tell you what Miss B. thinks of the floral and saccharine offerings which were laid at her feet by other boys. Whole cliques have gone to civil (and uncivil) war over the doings and the undoings, the conquests and the scornings of some wee visiting minx of a girl who loved mischief, or some handsome eligible who laughed and rode away. The visit of a lord has caused a social tur- moil and set whole communities a-buzz and a-bite ; the transit of a radiant flirt has broken plighted troths and sent men to the frontier and maids to angry cloisterhood not a thousand miles away, and you and I have seen it. The guest is not always a distinct blessing. Sometimes the old lady focusses her lorgn- ette upon her and says in a high key, " I wonder where they picked her up r "' Some- times "they" did indeed pick him or her up in a summer hotel, at the mountains, on a steamer, and impulsively made themselves cheap by insisting upon a visit, and ended by finding themselves in the police court to iden- tify the spoons and the guest in a terrible THE GUEST 37 ^1 bouleverseme7it. Sometimes they nourished a title in their bosoms and were bitten by an adventurer who borrowed the title sans cax- inonie and left no P.P.C. cards, nor yet the family jewels, when he took his leave. Such guests have visited within a radius of ten miles from King and Yonge streets. A very frequent and undesirable guest is the one who comes to visit you and remains to visit your social rival. By a glint of mirth, or a look of war in said rival's eye you are apprised that your guest has played you false and that your rival has a fifth ace up her sleeve, which she will play to your undoing some day. The guest who visits from house to house has the peace of mind of every hostess at her mercy. There is the cranky guest who has a temperance mania, or the guest who has philanthropic fads, and is visited by dowdy secretaries of leagues and councils, and other persons whom you don't care to have taking tea from your best china ; and the guest who doesn't come when people have been special- ly invited to meet him ; and the guest who stays until the man of the house grows quite 38 SOCIETY TYPES rude to her; and the guest who takes you unawares when the children have croup ; and the guest who simply treats your house as a free hotel and begs you to let him or her come and go as the spirit moves, which is, perhaps, of all guests, the most trying. If you want to take your wife to the play, the independent guest, previously having an- nounced an evening's absence, pops in just as a pick-up dinner is on, and says, " Do go ! Don't mind me ; I can quite well stay alone," which of course is out of the question. In short, there are so many orders and degrees of guests that it is a good thing that there are just as many hosts to match them. VI.— THE OLD MAID T seems brutally frank to speak of the woman who has escaped or declined matrimonial fetters with an adjective which, for some mysterious reason, is considered detrimen- tal to any female on the hither side of her semi- centennial celebration. After fifty summers have scorched and win- ters bleached her, no woman still in single blessedness could with propriety refuse to be regarded as an old maid, however much springs of eternal youth might gurgle through her being, but there is a numerous company adorning society which numbers women past their first youth, who, from dis- position, circumstances or personal non- attractiveness of form or feature, have failed to inspire the creature man with the idea of 39 40 SOCIETY TYPES possession in sufficient clearness to express it in an answerable proposition, or who, pre- ferring liberty and certainty to fetters and the risk of dissatisfaction, have steadily scouted the possible or positive declaration of affection which the perversity of some obtuse man threatened or precipitated. There is a saying that every woman has at least one chance to write Mrs. before some man's name. Be that as it may, (for the tastes of men are marvelous and past ac- counting for), it does not result in any sensi- ble diminution of the class under considera- tion — the old maids who may be seen any day in society. One approaches the subject with hesitation, owing to the peculiar fact that while it is universally acknowledged sotto voce that there is an inadequacy and a subtle detrimentality in a life sentence of spinsterhood, at the same time, commisera- tion thereon would be a faux pas deeply re- sented and direly revenged by the unattached sisterhood generally. There scarcely lives a man or woman who can truthfully assert that any old maid has been know^n by them to frankly avow that she would get married if 1j \ i /Vv 1] A i THE OLD MAID 41 she got a chance. Should such exist it is probable that if a bold wooer presumed on her declaration of willingness to wed she would laugh in his face her refusal. An old maid who could face the world with the up- set tradition of offers refused in one hand, could hold any known explosive in the other. One cannot, therefore, pity the old maid, much less sympathize with her. She pre- sents even a more complicated problem than the widow. Each stands alone, the latter inviting condolence, the former flouting it. Says the widow, "Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all." The old maid says nothing ; she shrugs her shoulders over temporary connubial bliss. When the old maid leaves her high estate there is a tremulous amusement in society's smile — one congratulates her with effusion to hide contraband mirth. An engaged old maid is a curious study. If she give herself up to the abandon of happy absorbed worship of the bald or gray- whiskered beau who has selected her for honor, society giggles and has a delightful lot of amusement, tempered with impatience at 42 SOCIETY TYPES her lack of difrnity ; if she conceals her feel- ing or refutes accusations of tardy sentiment, society slyly suggests that she took what she could get, seized a last chance, and that she must be very thankful she had it. Should the old maid recklessly bestow her concreted affections upon a youthful suitor, society shrieks with laughter and points the finger of derision at h /. It takes a good deal of grit, one would suppose, in any old maid, to plunge into matrimony. There is a pathetic side to it ; something like what is suggested on the sudden inheritance of a fortune by an old man who has lived meagrely and toiled hard all his life. It seems a great pity it was so long in coming ! Old maids develop many diverse traits. One runs to adipose and adopting waifs and strays. This species always pours teas at bazaars and is secretary to some important charity. Another takes up general culture and encourages art ; she is one of the inde- pendently dowered, has her own pretty home and entertains daintily. This old maid is a welcome type in any well ordered social circle. To her, men have so little interest THE OLD MAID 43 I that they almost cease to exist. She may at any time, however, be enslaved, preferably by a proti^g^y whom she will, a la Baroness-Bur- dette Coutts, marry off-hand and live devot- edly attached to until her life's end. The thin-featured, acidulated old maid, so com- mon a type in sentimental eras, is now almost extinct. The impetus given to women's en- terprise, and the avenues opened for thought and work have delivered many a clever old maid from the misfortune of turning sour. She is always clever, the acidulated old maid, full of force and cursed by nerves which will not rest ; generally placed in a position more or less dependent, and feeling her limitations bitterly, she is of all the sisterhood least like- ly to be offered means of escape. The clever old maid need not be sour ; she may be of tempered sweetness, enjoying a competency, the result of honest work. She may be aris- tocratic, a lover of good dinners, a crack hand at whist, a devotee of cribbage ; she may be- long to the whist club including the clubman and the widow, whose sessions are as inevit- able as Medo-Persian legislation, and as en- joyable as keen appreciation can make them. 44 SOQETY TYPES She may not, however, hear the stories which the clubman tells to the widow until the next day ; a tradition of girlish innocence still re- mains, which the clubman recognizes, and the stories must reach the old maid by word of a woman. As a chaperone the old maid is not much sought after. She isn't sympathetic, and though she is not distrusted by girls as is her rival, the widow, she unconsciously repels them more. There is a ghastly type of old maid, the giddy gusher, who hunts men as a sort of ghoulish Diana, and preens and prances everywhere. Boys tolerate her, men fly before her, women make faces that ex- press many unlovely thoughts as she flutters by. She puts her arm about her woman friend's waist, calls her dearest and sweet- heart, prattles and pranks in a medley of be- wildering inanity and absurdity. For her sake many a shaft is aimed at the spinster- hood. The last type, which mankind views with murderous and hostile eyes, and woman- kind is often afraid of, is the franchise fiend. She is so seldom seen in society that it scarcely boots to consider her. Society, . I THE OLD MAID 45 which diverges on issues of good and evil, is a unit on the subject of the Advanced Old Maid. She is voted a bore, and her death- knell rings. Her views, her bloomers, her meetings, and speeches, and pamphlets, all go into the dustbin of society, and at dinner, whist, supper or rout she has no place. That connection, money and an iron-bound epider- mis keep her still a type of warning here and there is very regrettable. She never marries ; there are ameliorations in man's hardest lot ! 1 I 1 VII. —THE GENTLEWOMAN HERE are none other gentlewomen than those whose natures are gen- tle, refined, pure and steadfast. Gentle- women, like poets, are born, not made. There is no episode too trifling or no crisis too grave to be met by the gentle- woman, and met with dignity and self-respect. If her nerves fail her, she flings herself upon her traditions. She infinitely pities, in a secret way, the people who have no traditions. She does it secretly because perhaps it may displease or annoy them to know of her feeling, and to displease or annoy her fellows is impossible to her. She has a delicate sense of honor ; the gentlewoman could not defraud an indi- vidual, a corporation or a government ; she 47 48 SOCIETY TYPES I' ' pays her debts, her car-fare, her taxes, and the duty on her Paris gowns, with equal exactness and sense of obh'gation. She pays, even when she is sensible of overcharge, because one of her traditions forbids her to haggle, but equally forbids her to employ again the rapacious tradesman or work- woman. The gentlewoman is absolutely innocent of scandals. She would be more deeply distressed at having repeated ever such an innocent if unfounded report than her neighbor would at having inadvertently smashed a priceless bit of a friend's Sevres tea-set. She is a good Church-woman, usually of the Anglican or Romanist faith, which two divisions of the Church most reverence tradition. She often has preju- dices, and sometimes she is lacking in know- ledge of the social and intellectual advances up to date, but she knows the benefit of charity in all matters and the danger of hasty conclusions. Some women are cham- pagne, effervescing and fascinating ; some are rich, red port, beclouding and passion strong ; some are vin du pays^ thin and a bit sour ; some old Tokay, inspiring and exhilarating ; \ THE GENTLEWOMAN 49 the gentlewoman is pure spring water, cool, clear, crystalline, rippling from Nature's heart. She instinctively shuns marked and pronounced colors, opinions and fashions. A reserve, at once attracting and repelling her fellows, seems to enshroud her like a semi- translucent veil, now and then gently parted by a breath of impulse, a reverent touch of sympathy, or a stern word of duty. She is a bit of a Stoic in expression, one of her tradi- tions being the duty of self-control ; she is not apt to be loquacious, another tradition being that as a gentlewoman she is entitled to respectful attention when she speaks. This leads her to consider, so that what she says may be worthy of hearing. The gentlewoman is utterly loyal. No question of positioi. expediency, or any possible emergency can make her false to a friend, or careless of an obligation. She may break her leg and fail to appear at an appointed time and place, but if she receives a confidence she will hold it sacred ; if she makes a promise she will keep it to the letter ; if she gives her word no government bond is surer. • A very high and exalted idea 50 SOCIETY TYPES of the rights of others is one of her strongest traits. The gentlewoman may give up her f;hare of a narrow sidewalk ; she will never crowd over upon her neighbor's. Her maid- of-all-work is considered as justly and as carefully as the most exalted woman on her visiting list. A delicate sense of the fitness of things makes the gentlewoman sensitive to many crudities and idiosyncrasies of less well poised and informed persons. But she does not rail at them, and continue her torture by dwelling upon its cause. If one woman's taste in adornment grates upon her finer sense of fitness and harmony, she looks away ; if another's violent opinions and utter- ances jar upon her she changes either topic or company, for one of her traditions is that strife and argument are unprofitable and bad for the digestion and the temper. In trouble and sickness she is a sort of balm upon the wounds of nature ; in dishonor she is a word- less and grieved creature ; in privation she is a brave and uncomplaining participant ; in dispute ana wrath she is a tender pleader for peace and forgiveness. THE GENTLEWOMAN 51 , As a young girl, the gentlewoman is not assertive. She is conscious of her value, but does not put a ticket of market price upon her forehead. Love comes to her with a different face from the laughing one with which he wooes the common herd. He finds her rare game for his subduing, and she is hardly won. The sly boy pauses before her dignity, her modesty and her reserve. The world sees a quiet wooing and an impercep- tible surrender ; the angels turn from a world of careless, easily-captured maidens to watch the capitulation of that white shrine, the young heart of the gentlewoman. With a gentlewoman a betrothal is almost a mar- riage. She grows in value as she takes up one of life's experiences after another. She is a wife worthy of wise old Solomon's high- est flight of praise. Whether the man who wins her be good or bad she makes the best of him, and sometimes inspires him to justify her beautiful faith. As a mother she is the strongest power for good the world has yet known. Living her principles, she makes them more vital to her children than they are even to herself Her sons may be gray 52 SCXIETY TYPES and her daup^hters wrinkled, but her lovely life will be as vivid and fresh an inspiration to them as it ever was. It may have been lived only for them, as they always believe. Society will never know what it owes to the gentlewoman. She is so quiet a force, so gentle a suasion, so silent a teacher, so wise a guide ! One sees her here and there in the gilded halls, carefully gowned and gracefully moving, quietly conversing and attentively listening, receptive, sympathetic, reposeful ; at the concert and the lecture, thoughtful, critical and appreciative, kindly in judgment and interested in the success of the perform- ers ; at the play, rising to enthusiasm over the heroics and melting to smiles at the fun shunning vulgarities, and at sea with doubles, entendreSy quick to detect fine work and fol- lowing the story with ever fresh pleasure. The gentlewoman has the gift of not hearing the things which do not please her, of not seeing unfitting sights. She draws herself into her seclusion, and the objectionable can- not penetrate it. She likes her dinner, her game, and her quiet chat, when, life's day waning, she puts her feet on her footstool THE GENTLEWOIVIAN 53 and folds her careful, delicate hands. And when she goes away, society draws a long breath of regret — vapid, hurrying, feverish, and unsatisfied society sighs, " One of the old school," and goes humbly to her funeral. VIII.~THE SELF-MADE MAN /frj^HERE are two distinct varieties of the self- made (so-called) male member of society — the man who makes himself on his own or- iginal and individual plan, and the man who g^^^^ makes himself after a ^rh^ i pattern. There is just the same difference between the two as there is between a snob and a cad. Both have their short-comings, the latter having them in more abundance, but the similarity does not go so far as to handicap the self-made man should he enter for the popularity stakes. In fact, the first-named sort, the original concep- tion, is more often than not a most estimable and likable person. His integral force of character commands respect, and he has with him a certain dignity and earnestness, resul- 55 '1 s 56 SOCIETY TYPES ■i\ tant on the perils he has passed, which affects the world with the same emotions of affection and admiration as Othello recognizes in Des- demona, and credits to their true cause. This self-made man is always a noticeable figure in society. He is usually of the leonine type, big and broad, and suggesting in his person- ality strength, dominant and victorious. In the giddy rush he stands like that stern gray rock which parts the Rhine fall at Schaff- hausen ; around him the tide of frivolity, discord, wit and merrime'''t ripples and sparkles, but scarcely damps his finger-tips, much less disturbs his equilibrium. Some- times the self-made man has the bulging brow and the deep-set eyes that whisper of long study, forethought, struggle, and it may be that in the achievement of his life-work he incidentally achieved social distinction, as a sort of floral tribute to his more solid success. A self-made man has made himself by making a great railroad, another self-made man has made himself, so to speak, out of good whiskey ; self-made men built on such slippery foundations as good beer and porter are now giving millions to advance / ^ , ! I ^ I ^ THE SELF-MADE MAN 57 scientific research and humanitarian enter- prises. This type of self-made man has a nobility which outranks almost every advantage known. He is the financier whose word is final, the engineer to whom nature bows the knee, the thinker to whom science whis- pers the secret of her twisted knotty points ; and in the drawing-room he is the man who stands grave and silent beside an exquisitely gowned wife, and shakes hands with hundreds of tea-goers with a conscientious indifference to weariness and the futility of the whole performance, which is a strong side-light on the innate strength and poise of his nature. He never utters the puerile wail or snarl against society, which escapes from the self-made man of lesser weight, and would despise the voicing of the cynical phrases culled by the feebler type from the vocabu- lary of his model. He takes society as he takes his good old wines, as a more or less pleasant and enjoyable accompaniment to his success, not as the aim and end of it. He is sometimes an invaluable leaven to the frothy and unruly constituents among which he is ! 58 SOCIETY TYPES placed, and his consideration and amenability never reac'^ the point which places him disad- vantageously therein. Sometimes society, finding out with intuitive sharpness and maliciousness the weak spot in this worthy creature, sets to work to under- mine him therewith. He may somewhere nourish a grain of libertinism, with which more perfectly developed libertines will tempt him to his ruin. The self-made man's one break does him more irredeemable damage than the scores of unutterable wickednesses of the aristocratic roiu^^ who is practically free from punishment in most cases. Or he may be fired with a half patriotic, half self-seeking desire to represent his country for his country's good. Parliament has often a knock-out drop ready for the self-made man. "Oh, you would, would you ? Then take tJiatl' says the vox populi, or the party, or some of the murderous voices that do him to his death. The self-made man nearly always builds him a palace wherein his women folk may prink and prance, and the glory of which may be gurgled over in the columns of the society papers and make gentlefolks yawn and the THE SELF-MADE MAN 59 '' servants' hall exclaim, " O Lor ! " When he gives a party those who are invited are pat- ronized by those who are not ; the latter, however annoyed to miss a night's fun, consoling themselves by a superior bearing and a scarcely perceptible smile and shrug. Society is exceedingly comical in this phase of its treatment of the new-comer. Society, which usually goes like a flock of sheep after one leader, is divided over the acceptance of the self-made man. As a householder, he is a bonanza to the tradespeople ; if his women folk are of any sort at all possible, he receives just the backing he needs from them in his risky essay as an entertainer. With due care, excessive patience and many prayers he gets himself accepted as a giver of well planned dinners, ideal suppers, and his wife can give an afternoon tea of many carriages and a due attendance of the real people. Sons and daughters make suitable friends, engage- ments, followed by marriages, moor the ship of family safe among the elect, and paradise opens to the rugged Peri who has stormed her golden gates. The self-made man who makes himself 6o SOCIETY TYPES upon a model is never a success. In the first place his ignorance and lack of proper values frequently lead him to select a model of anything but correct style. A poor pattern generally presupposes a poor imitation. The result justifies the supposition. The self-made man aims to be a gentleman ; he smokes, he drinks, he drives and rides ; he wears thunder and lightning clothing, and neckties which alone would be his condemnation. He tries to be a devil of a swell. He succeeds in being a sight and a laughing-stock, if he's lucky enough to escape being a nuisance. His money secures him toleration with certain cliques, of which the women are not invari- ably like Caesar's wife, nor the men like Caisar, honorable. One sees him perched on a coach beside the beauty, or in some shady corner with the widow over fifty, or exchanging winks and nods with the gossip who knows him like a book, and uses him like a door-mat when he ceases to send theatre tickets and invitations to her. He adores his dress-suit in private and reviles it in public, following the lead of the blas^ person upon whom he models himself He ' THE SELF-MADE MAN 6i mentions frequently the names of his ac- quaintances in exclusive circles, in familiar terms, and holds his breath when he is in their company. He is often good-natured, and so long as he is reticent, he may remain a tolerated member of society's inner circle, for self-made men get even there, nowadays. Very seldom, though, does he marry one of the better class of women. There are limits. Even the beauty who has ridden and driven his horses turns from the thoughts of a wed- ding tour with him. He often develops into a pronounced bachelor club man, a gourmand, and has been known to even achieve gout. He dies content, if he dies of it ! IX.— THE BACHELOR. iO not confound the bach- elor with the unmarried man. There is as great a distinction to be made between bachelors and bachelors as there is between widows and w i d o w s . Tern por?. ri 1 y unattached would des- cribe a certain make of weed-wearer, and the same sc^rt of bachelor might be classed as merely awaiting matri- mony the inevitable. But the bachelor proper (or improper, and more often this than that, says Grundy), is a confirmed and well-nigh final development of a certain type of man. Looking at his unresponsive eye and calm lip one knows that he has sized up the fair sex and found it wanting, that is, as a matrimonial investment. The bachelor 6.3 --r*»aessj^n over sieves rt^^''^''^^ bonnets f^' ^^""^ but coddTerth ' '^'"•°"-«^ snubs tL iittl^ a- '^ *nner anw devotes £ t f°" '° ^'"^e her w "'^''^^'■^^ very ^.s hostess the impressfo ' „ '' ^P' '° give ^ mistake in u '^ ^'°" "'at she hac , banquet ;! '"' ^'"'■angement V f '"^''^ w.Vi, <^°ncluded rf "'"'"}• before the eqmrements as a «. JLI %"P *° h's f ^ head, with twmldinrr ^""' ^"d shakes ^"s ear. children, ^ets and lubs the Weekly whom -r with ^ts of TJS to tciiing dth a votes very- give nade the vine his s It or ■ys he es ?r r. THE PARSON 97 His complexion is apt to heighten and his voice to lower as a good dinner wanes to its completion ; if he has his trusty whist jjartner, the widow, for his dinner partner, she probably enjoys his society and wonders at his repertoire of murmured anecdotes. A very pretty girl once said she got the shock of her life when she saw her dinner partner of Saturday night appear in his robes of white and face her from the pulpit on Sunday morning. There is no doubt of the dining- out parson's versatility! Whereas the mild type of parson and the dining-out parson are pretty sure to be benedicts (there is always a well-nourished lady in black somewhere down the dinner table, who is taken in by the self-made man), the ascetic parson fxouts Hymeneal fetters, even if they be chains of roses from Love's fairest parterre. The mild-voiced parson may have a moustache, the rosy dining-out parson may have trim whiskers, but the celibate shaves as smooth as a tombstone. His fastings and vigils keep him spare and spiritual, and his self-repression gives his lips an austere curve, which alternately awes and exasperates the 98 SOCIETY TYPES golf-playing girl who resents his pose healthily. The pose is sincere, beyond doubt ; there's little fun in renouncing the rosy side of youth, and the natural turning of the emotional side to the light. The celibate parson rarely dines out. His fasts are sad interferences with society's arrangements ; you can't have a man at your table with a rout of jolly guests tucking in at the rate of several dollars apiece, who refuses everything but bread and salad, who drinks plain Polly, and who informs you with calm insistence that it is the eve of St. Bridget the Less and a day of abstinence ! He makes you feel positively glutton ish, confound him! When the ascetic parson is taken in hand seriously by the athletic girl there is fun for the watching. She breaks her temper, sometimes her heart, and, incidentally, quite an assortment of the ten commandments. She scoffs at and wheedles him, and he prays and fasts and grows thinner, and sometimes goes out to Central Africa, or to frigid Alaska, where athletic girls dare not follow, a modern St. Kevin, tormented by a dashing Kathleen. Such an ascetic is the real thing. For some Ul-. THE PARSON 99 sinister or mulish streak in him he mars one life, or any number, and he becomes a tradition, and when he dies of African fever, or is lost in a blizzard, the eyes of the parish at home are heavy with resigned rebellion. The athletic parson is seen very often in society, and like every hearty, happy, healthy creature, he sweetens and tones up the whole neighborhood. He has a masterful way with women, a genial brotherhood with men. He laughs sentimental girls out of their adoration of him, and makes violent love to the gentlewoman who is white-haired and dainty, and who admires him openly. One day he probably sits beside her, and she rests her frail old fingers on his arm while he tells her of his love for some queenly young gentle woman, perhaps her granddaughter, and her sweet old eyes sparkle as she says : "My dear boy, I am so happy to hear this!" And he kisses her thin little hand and she calls him her son, and he has her blessing, rich with knowledge and truth, and a woman's loving earnestness. Other women may be fascinated by a celibate vow, and an attenuated face and hollow eyes— it's a lOO SOCIETY TYPES I'i morbid impulse, and one to which the old lady never gives wa}*. Rather is her ideal parson the strong, active, muscular, masterful young chap, the frank chum of the golfer, male and female, the adoration of the worst and smallest choir boy, the honest, earnest priest, whose sermons are practical talks, who does not know, bless him, exactly when St. Bridget the Less died and went to glory, nor just what are the correct hangings for her holy day. The athletic parson and the young gentlewoman are apt to annoy society by being very quietly wedded some fine morning, with only their relations and the Bishop at the church, though after the vows, the school children and the poor folks flock and cheer. There will be a simple dignity and purity about the atmosphere of the parsonage; the parson's wife will not give an inkling of a confidence about her married life, even to the grandmother (who least desires it), and the parson will, with years, take on either the rubicund tint of the dining-out type, or the clear-cut and classic contour of the more refined aging, and if he be not made in due time a Bishop, there will remain THE PARSON lOI a vacancy very deplorable in the noble array of lawn-sleeved dignities who are of all finite creations the most impressive and reverenced and whose presence at imposing society weddings gives such c^clat to the whole function. As a parti the parson is not regarded with special favor, the parson's wife having generally a round of duties incompatible with selectness in her choice of acquaintances. In this country, moreover, poverty is often her lot, competence rarely blesses her, affluence is almost unknown. Her life is not exciting, interesting to society, or given to its pleasures, and when she leaves the luxury of the self-made man's palace, the quiet cosy home of the maiden aunt, or the ancient residence of the patroness, one hears a sigh in the remark of her intimates, " Poor Mary ! I suppose she will have very little time to herself, now she has married the parson ! " XIV.— UNPLEASANT PEOPLE. OCIAL circles, as the as- ^"^^J semblages of the amuse- ment seeking fraternity are called, contain almost always one person who is endured, tolerated and hated, and on account of his or her domineering and overbearing nature, the social slaves bow down in wrathful necessity, standing silent in the strong presence, but making up for this attitude by words many and forcible later on. Sometimes the marked man or woman is cursed with curiosity, and will ask any question, however unjustifiable and imperti- nent, take any liberty in looking or listening. Such an one is labelled " dangerous " every- where. Who does not at once recall some man whose touchy and irascible temper is always a menace to the peace and happiness of his 103 A 104 SOCIETY TYPES companions, whose boastful and self-asserth t word and manner offend continually, whose peculiarities exact constant consideration and self-control from each one of his friends ? And what coterie is without its always idiotic and irrational she, whose suspicions disturb the nerves and tempers of her associates, whose woes are proclaimed upon the housetops, the maladies of whose children and the short- comings of whose servants are dinned into the suffering ears of humanity. There is the stuttering or gobbling old gentleman, who corners the timid curate's wife and reduces her to nervous prostration in the course of an afternoon lawn party, and the very stout old lady who hangs upon your arm and says, " Tell me something amusing, Mr. Ko-Ko !" though if you were to tell her what is amusing you, as you study her, she would, in revenge, promptly set about ma- noeuvering your social downfall. There are wives who snub their husbands, and husbands who bully their wives, and children who ignore their parents, and parents whose example and precept are both injurious and infectious. There are fractious mothers and ,V UNPLEASANT PEOPLE 105 (\ sullen daughters, who have failed to attract the eligibles, and take it out of the ineligibles in various subtle and cruel ways. There are men who are over-familiar, and men who are over-sensitive, and men who do not cleanse either their hearts or their garments, and women who do not wash their necks, and boys who neglect their nails, and girls whose frowsiness sends 1 shudder of loathing through a man. There is always a man who looks over-long upon the wine when it is red or golden, and whose wine is largely known by another name, and there is the woman whose vacant or daring eye rouses the devil of desire or the angel of pity or the curse of disgust in the man who meets her glances "after taking." There is the bore with his long story, and there is the man who cannot live without passing on a tale of doubtful decency or frank nastiness, and the woman who encourages him with pretended horror and real enjoyment of his daring. There is the lady with a past of decent remoteness and the man with a present which might be the better for a disinfectant ; the woman who plays a little and the man who io6 SOCIETY TYPES sings a little, the lady who writes poetry and the gentleman who makes puns. There are the idiots who insist upon playing games or having " a little music " when one has dined well and wishes for nothing but rest and dreamy conversation, knowing that it would disturb the digestion of an ostrich to play a game of " grab," with a parcel of shrieking people, after a good meal, and that an anaconda would have bilious headache if compelled to listen to a throaty man or a heady woman gurgling sentimental assertions to a piano accompaniment, when their dinner lies in the way of proper lung inflation. There is the woman who asks your opinion of your neighbor and your neighbor's wife, that she may promptly acquaint them therewith, if it be unfavorable and you so unwise as to betray yourself And there is the awkward person, generally, alas, a man ! who breaks valuable ornaments and bric-a-brac and swears at his mischance. There is the dancer who makes his partner a show, and the damp-handed person, and the lady who asks you to guess her age, and the artist who surprises your honest opinion of his work. I UNPLEASANT PEOPLE 107 What exceedingly unpleasant persons these are ! Upon enumerating them I am almost appalled at their number and their inevi- tableness. One must, however, meet them and put up with them, for society is perme- ated with their presence. The man with a family tree, the woman with a tradition of better days, the ill-fitting people, the angular people, the frankly bored and cruelly honest people, the people whose sense of duty is their excuse for candor, heart-breaking and home-rending; the women whose super- abundant charms shock modest man, and the skeletonized creatures whose vertebrae may be counted in horrible distinctness; the women and men whose revelation of apo- plectic tendencies alarms one as the banquet does its work, the ghastly persons whose skin is daubed with various beautifiers and whose wigs surprise one with changing tints now and then; the barbarians who load themselves with jewels, d VAinericaine or variety actress, at all hours and on any occasion ; the men who smoke strong tobacco between the dances, and the women who cannot be decently gotten rid of when one r^" 1 08 SOCIETY TYPES falls into their clutches at a ball ; the lady who delights in supper at the club or the caft\ and thinks it clever to " stick a man for it," as she tells other women with glee next day ; the girl who takes your name in vain and is your reported fiancde before you've had time or thought to denounce her or recovered the ring she borrowed to " wish on;" the mother who leaves you tete-a-tete with her daughter, for a long evening, with an injunction not to think of going before supper, the father who asks your intentions ; such a beastly unpleasant lot of people, are they not? It behooves thee and me, O, pleasant one ! to look to it that we are free from each and every frailty, weakness and wickedness which compels me to set them all together in one horrid class as unpleasant people ! f 4 ^ u