>~T!Si^^^Xj^ ZX) S^ \5g^, ~^ > yy^^'jjSf^. ^7>5fe^3l^ S> -■?^' TZ!^^ ~^ I» ;. sSl%^^ ^^&fe-'^Q^- .-t^ -S^ /II2^^ t3 ► . . 3^5^^^ ^4^ ^"^j^^^^il^- ^3^ • 5"^ ""^^ > - -^ -4=s?-^ Sfc^^ -"3^ j3^ T3> ' ""^^ "I!§2SR' "^ : 3;>^o ^^S55 1-^ ^^ ~3^ v~|2^ "il^S^ "H > .■ ■ ^^Jjfe - '^'5$3> Hfr^^'Sifc ^"*5^ - ^~~"^^ '~^^ ■~^ »:v ^"53 I '^^>^^^^ ► . t:^ T^ -.-I 5 ."'.3 ^ ' '_jfr }^i^ J^ : '-< P ^''^^fr^ ^""^^T^^^^P ^ ~'ZZ3^ jI3^' ■■ 31^ '^^^^-^ k' ^^'^►"'t """^ ^'^^ — ^1^ - ■ "'~'^ni'~ "y^ -^ M -.1 >. ^ ^ ''"3311^ ""liSr^fc"^^ » :^'^^ "^^ ^^ *BB)fc ;;■>' "*-* $^s ^^- ::»> ^^F? LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 1 Shelf .::^---::' ■ '^ ' ^^^— UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, m mm ::»^^p»4 3^_>ix>:;; "^ J3»^^ ^i^-:' :>> 51* ^ ' : • ■» ->>■:■ .\>> ^ ?'>^ ^rx^ -im^' ''^^ ■ ^^ ^^: ^^^^^- A woman's thoughts ABOUT MEN. BY MRS. HUGH L. BRINKLEY. NEW YORK: DERBY BROTHERS. A Woman's Thoughts ABOUT MEN, BY Mrs. Hugh L. Brinkley. For more than twenty years man has held the mirror up to woman, now a woman shall hold the mirror up to man ; let him sec himself, perhaps, the spectacle from its very rarity will do him good." — Page 4. a' NEW YORK: Derby Brothers, 1879^ r ■53442^/7 l?7? Copyrighted by Derby Brothers, 1879. Ci0^f¥s;^^f'I'^. ^» • «> Ckapter I. - - - My Subject Chapter II. • - - The Dandy Chapter IIL .....----- Old Beau Chapter IV. Man's Vanity vs. Woman's Chapter V. . . . • ^ - . ■ - - Nerves Chapter VI. ' Hyprocrisy Chapter VII. ..-•-■■ Slang Chapter VIII. -.--•- The Heiress Hunter Chapter IX. * The Nice Young Man Chapter X. The Modern Spoon Chapter XI. ••-••- • The General Lover Chaptkr XII. .-•--- Piece Meal. Admirers Chapter" XIII. • • Imaginative Men Chapter XIV. .-.•-- • Grand Lamas Chapter XV. . - - • - - ■ Pig-Headed Men Chaptek XVI. .-.-.-- The Spoilt Man Chapter XVn. ..---• - The Gossip Chapter XVIII. . - - . The Slanderer and Braggart Chapter XIX. -..--•-■ The Masher Chapter XX. - - - • Patent American Champion Caller Chapter XXI. ------ Rich Young Bachelors Chapter XXIL --..-- - Married Men Chapter XXIII. • - The Fast Man Chapter XXIV. ..... . The Betting Man Chapter XXV. • - - - - - - Business Man Chapter XXVI. - - - - - ■ The Pack Horse Chapter XXVII. --..-- • - Brokers Chapter XXVIII. ..-..- The Politician Chapter XXIX. - • - - - - The Men of Brass Chapter XXX. Careless Husbands Chapter XXXI, - Married Tyrants Chapter XXXII. ----- Some Woman's Husband Chapter XXXIII. . - . , - Henpecked Husbands Chapter XXXIV. ...---.• Fathers Chapter XXXV. ..-..- The Careless Father Chapter XXXVI. The Coming Man Chapter I. MY SUBJECT. J^OR the last twent}^ years there has been one un- failing, unending, infinite, inexhaustible, subject, which has been uppermost in books, in newspapers, in poems, in plays, and in parlor gossip — the woman of the period. Poets have sung of her, have fallen at her feet and poured their incense at her shrine, enveloping her in the fragrant clouds of her own praises ; philoso- phers have written of her, have taken her, and, plac- ed her under their relentless microscope, and re- vealed new and hitherto unsuspected follies ; satir- ists have laughed at her, and have forced the world to join them in their laugh ; artists have lampooned her ; morahsts have anathematized her ; and the poor creature has been held responsible for the sins of the whole world. MY SUBJECT. We are told that as the woman is so the men are ; we have been solemnly assured that woman moulds and forms the man ; we have been oracularly and pithily informed that man, mere man, is but the pup- pet of the petticoats. And, to a certain extent we have been told the truth. The influence of woman, as in the form of mother's love it is the first, so at first it is the most important influence to which man is subjected, just as through all life it is the best. But it should be re- membered that as the son advances in life the mother's influence is lessened in importance, the father's manly influence towers up, the male com- panion and friend exert their influence and power, till finally mother's love and all womanly influence are thrown into that back ground where they remain, be- coming permanently fixed among the shadows So, too, with the daughter, from one year till ten the mother is to the daughter all in all, then the girl and boy playmates come upon the scene, and the brother and the brother's friends ; then the lover enters the MY SUBJECT. arena and becomes in time the husband, until finally the mother's gentle voice is scarcely heard, or heard no more, amid the clatter of a masculine world. So, while we find in all this " woman of the pe- riod " cant much of the truth, we also discover in it more of exaggeration, or, rather, while it is in itself true, there lies another and a greater truth back of it, from which it derives all its signification. This sim- ple fact is, that the woman ot the period is but an effect, not a cause ; a reflex, and not an original light. She is but the legitimate and inevitable result of the man of the period. She exists for him, and her existence and character are moulded by him. According to the books and the popular theory, Mary and Julia talk, dress, dance and flirt, and Hen- ry and Adolphus are influenced for good or evil, are affected for weal or woe, by what Julia says and by what Mary wears — by Julia's coquetry and by Mary's sentiment. But, in reality, Mary talks and Julia dances, Julia dresses and Mary flirts for the one single aim of pleasing, and by pleasing, winning, either Adol- MY SUBJECT. phus or Henry. So that really it is Adolphus who is responsible for Mary and Henry who controls the character and decides the fate of Julia. True, an imprudent speech from Julia's pretty lips will linger unpleasantly in Henry's memory, and a hasty word from Mary will rankle in the breast of Adolphus, but Henry has his profession to help him to forget and Adolphus has his business ; they have their cigars, their boon companions and their poli- tics ; they have their cards and their clubs, all these daily and nightly pursuits which modify largely, if they do not wholly neutralize, the influence of their divinities. But Juha has no business, Mary has no profession, neither do the girls of the period belong to clubs ; they neither smoke nor drink nor play poker ; they may laugh at and tease their lovers when they are with them to their willful whim's content, but after all they are compelled to think about the men much more than the men are permitted to think about them. MY SUBJECT. •' Man's love is of man's life a thing apart — *Tis woman's whole existence." Consequently, deny it as they may, Julia is mould- ed by Henry, not Henry by Julia ; Mary is influenced by Adolphus, not Adolphus by Mary, to any vital extent. This being the case, it is evident that much of all the cant we read about ^'The Woman of the Period " is verbal bosh and bathos — nothing worth unless when taken in connection with the man of the period. But, unfortunately for the enquirers after social truth, we cannot read or hear anything worth read- ing or hearing about this man of the period. He writes books about the girl of the period — but no books are written about him. He holds woman up to ridicule, but no woman retaliates by turning the ridicule upon him. He publishes squibs about the mother-in-law, and issues lampoons and cartoons on the woman of fashion. But the woman of fashion and the mother-in-law, do not write for comic papers. 10 MY SUBJECT. Thus the woman of the period has ever been at the mercy of the man, he paints her in undying verse as sensual or frivolous, cold or cruel, headless and heartless. He apostrophizes her as a doll or a Devil — and, al- though she is neither, she must fain submit. There are no female Swinburnes to avenge the sex. So it has come to pass that influential, socially, gi- gantic, though he is, this man of the period has had no naturalist to describe him. Now, I modestly pro- pose to become his Cuvier, his Buffon, to reveal this Sphinx to his own period, and to the women thereof. He has held the mirror up to woman, now a woman shall hold the mirror up to him, let him see himself, perhaps, the spectacle, from its very rarity will do him good. He shall sit for his own photograph, but not in oil, there shall be no colors used, he shall be taken as he is, and if the likeness be not flattering, it shall at least be life-like. Now, gentlemen, you doubtless expect to read of your own praises, what else could you expect from a MY SUBJECT. II woman. It has been my sex's interest to keep you well flattered, to have you on the very best possible terms with yourselves, and therefore, you naturally suppose that I shall proceed with your worship in the usual manner; that I will cite a chapter from his- tory, or experience in your honor, follow it with a psalm of sentimental thanksgiving for your very ex- istence, and finally, fall down and worship you. But, I beg your pardon, I shall do nothing of the kind, you have had far too much of that sort of thing for your own good already. You men are spoilt, abso- lutely ruined by female flatteries and attentions. Your mothers and sisters sacrifice themselves for you daily, your sweethears and lady friends flatter you atrociously, and your wives pet you and coax you, and humor your every weakness. Now, I shall be your mother-in-law, and in this useful but unpleasant capacity, I shall tell you many wholesome truths, truths which may not be sweet to the palate, but which shall be strengthening to your system. I candidly confess, that were I to consult only my own 12 MY SUBJECT. inclination, woman-like, I should say such charming things to you gentlemen, that every man in the coun- try would dub me " a develish fine woman, and clever, by Jove,'' but I have a mission to perform, private consideration must yield to the public good. I as- sure you, I am not prejudiced against you. I see clearly and appreciate fully your many and acknowl- edged excellencies, but you will also discover, I be- lieve, that I have studied astronomy, and that sons of our social system, though you are, yet like a wise philosopher, I have discovered that there are spots even in the sun. Chapter II. THE DANDY. T.ET us now avail ourselves of a fine afternoon and enjoy a promenade upon Broadway. That is the street for the '' men of the period." You will there find every type, especially will you see, in all his glory, and as he himself would phrase it, " giving the girls a treat," a certain class of male beings known as tailor blocks or swells, an exquisite or dandy. Let me introduce you to the dandy of the period. There he goes, along the promenade, en route for that museum of swells, the facade of the Fifth Av- enue Hotel. What a mincing walk he has. Talk of the Grecian bend, or the kangaroo sprawl of the girl of the pe- riod, neither of these monstrosities of gait are half as ridiculous as the mingled wriggle and twist ot this exquisite of Broadway. 14 THE DANDY. And then the simper of his face the ineffable com- placency, as well as the inexpressible vacancy of his eternal smile; he comprehends creation in an all-em- bracing- stare, in which impudence and inanity are combined in most wonderful proportions. Now he waves with his Paris glove a **ta ta, ta ta" to some fellow exquisite, and anon, with a jerk, and a twirl and a grin, he removes his silk hat for a moment from his curled and oiled head to do homage, after the manner of his kind, to some passing belle, and then, with an air as if he had performed the whole duty of man, he wends his winding way onward, this paragon of animals, stroking softly and fondly his moustache. Oh ! that moustache, what feeble woman's words can ever do justice to a man's moustache. How he pats it and pets it, how he carresses it, with all the ineffable tenderness of a young mother fondling her first born ; what a doll, a French doll, is to a baby ; what lace, real lace, is to a woman : what her first love letter is to a school girl ; what fame is to a poet, THE DANDY. 15 and glory to a soldier, this, and more than this, are his whiskers to the swell ; they are his solace and his occupation. He not only half the time dyes them, but he would at any time die for them. "^ ^ ^^ Ah ! he reaches the Fifth Avenue portico at last. Happy man ; now he can twirl his cane, or bite it ; how he can lean against a pillar in a die-away, or a " look at me and long for me girls " attitude ; now he can adjust his eye-glass, and faintly swear — '' By Jove ! a develish fine girl." Now he can look a lady out of countenance, or answer the meaning glances ot a flirt by the unmanning look of a fool ; now he can aw-aw and haw-haw to his manly heart's con- tent ; now he can exhibit his little boots and his little brains at the same time, and show the worst of breeding and the best of broad-cloth ; now he can simper and saunter and giggle, and wriggle back to his club, illustrating to the world how slight the dif~ ference is between the tailor's block and the milli- ner's model. Chapter III. OLD BEAU. QR perchance, he is an old beau ; it matters not, his age, only renders him the more ridiculous and the more artificial. His hair is grey, or perchance he wears a wig, in either case, whether his hair is bought by money or blanched by time, he puts his whole soul into it, only Heaven — and his barber — know the work and time he gives to it. And then the trouble and the expense of his teeth, why ! he has six sets, and then his cosmetics, and his pads, and his stays, and, oh ! the agonies he endures when he puts on, and especially, when he takes off his boots, and how he pencils his wrinkled old eyes, and how he roughes his wrinkled old cheeks, just as faithfully as any old dowager, I assure you ; and how the old sinner ogles the girls, and how airly he waves his bony old fingers, and, to give him his due, how bravely he battles OLD BEAU, 17 with the rheumatism, and how gloriously the old vet- ern lights his duel with the gout, no great grand- mother of the mode could have done it better in the days of Louis, the Grand Monarch. And, appropos, of the dandies of the olden time, though they were more extravagant, more courtly, and more foppish, than the exquisites of to day ; though their toilets was more elaborate, and their at- tire was more gaudy, they were not a whit more earnest in their devotion to dress, than dandies old and young, of modern New York Chapter IV. man's vanity versus woman's. ^ND just here I must, as a woman, be allowed to pro- test against the commonly received idea, that per- sonal vanity or love of dress are special characteristics of woman only. Man has just that weakencss for a tailor, which women show to their miUiner. Women dress because men will have them dressy. Every girl knows that she is desirable as a companion at the theatre or ball in proportion to her wardrobe, that men ask her company of an evening, as an elegant advertisement of their own taste. Men discuss a woman's dress with other men, and with their own immediate familes, a wife is well aware, that her hus- band notices how the wives of other men are dressed, women soon learn the inevitable lesson, that next to a woman's charms, rank in the eyes of men, her drygoods. MAN*S VANITY VERSUS WOMAN'S. I9 That second only in importance to smiles are bon- nets, that inferior only to snowy arms and busts are panniers, and the paraphernalia of toilette. Every female is soon convinced that all men, whether lib- eral or mean, admire alike the dress extravagance of women — the only difference being that the generous man likes to see this display in his own family, while the skinflint admires it in the wives of other men. And as for personal vanity, men possess is equally with women — nay, I have been sometimes led to think that the male is the vainer animal ; my word for it, man's vanity is more deeply seated, you cannot get rid of it without getting rid of the man altogether. A woman's vanity is comparatively harmless and superficial — she prides herself on a curl, or a ribbon, or a bright eye, or a seal-skin sacque, on a coral lip or a camel's-hair shawl. But bless his dear heart, the man of the period is vain of his own sweet self, from the crown of his head to the sole of his feet he is the great '* I am," the none such of his species. Why, to his all prevading conceit, the 20 MAN^S VANITY VERSUS WOMAN^S. little vanities of a woman are not worth the men- tioning — and as to flattery, he can swallow without winking, a dose that would stun even the belle of a dozen seasons. No compliment so outrageous but he will credit it, if he thinks it is meant for him ; and so anxious is he for the bait, that he will dart at the meanest minnow and feed complacently on the merest inuendo. A trifle that would not stir a school girl will put a man into a flutter. Look at him and he will mentally vow you languish for him, imply a passing preference, but by a gesture and he will for- ever register you among the roll of his adorers. A compliment to a woman is but a passing meteor, a man makes of it a fixed star. You merely please the women by flattery, you control the men. Chapter V. NERVES. riO, too, with many other commonly received ideas, thus, that women only are troubled with nerves. We hear and read a great deal about the nerves of females, but the fact is, that there are just as many nervous men as nervous women, and any doctor or druggist will tell you that it is the men who take tc hashish and hydrate of chloral, not the women. The confession of an opium eater was written, not by a woman, but by a man. Ah! how many women now perusing these pages, can from memory or ex- perience, recall the image of a nervous man, and what a pitiful image he is, to be sure. The husband and father, troubled with nerves, enters his home with the twilight, and immediately the stillness of midnight settles down upon his de- voted household ; the children at his coming hush 22 NERVES. their merry voices, for it annoys the nerves of papa; the servants move about the house liked frightened ghosts, they dread ** the nerves of master.'' The wife and mother stifles the glad embrace she fain would give him, it shakes his "nerves;" even the baby fails to crow at his approach, the infant instinctively knows the nerves can't stand a crowing baby ; the very dog refuses to bark, the cat forgets to purr, the cunning animals have learned ere this to beware of nerves. The door jars, it agitates his nerves, the floor creaks, it upsets his nerves completely ; the only article in the house that suits his nerves is the dumb waiter. He comes home as usual with a headache, or an ache somewhere, or a pain some- where. He calls languidly for his slippers and a soothing mixture for his nerves. He passes the evening with his nerves — some one proposes a dance, his nerves won't have it. Some one plays the piano, his nerves can't stand it. If you rattle the evening paper, his nerves protest ; if you show the slightest sign of healthful, happy life, his nerves complain. NERVES. 23 He is a martyr to nerves, or rather he is the tyrant of nerves, and you and I, and all that come within his compass, are the martyrs. Chapter VI. HYPOCRISY, f^YPOCRISY too, has no sex. I know it has been the habit of men for years to talk and write about women as though hypocrisy were the especial char- acteristic of our sex, but men can in this, as in most other things, hold their own. Hypocrisy has been defined as the tribute vice pays to virtue, and, if this definition be correct, then virtue ought to have a most satisfactory treasury account, for the number of male hypocrites paying tribute to her is something astonishing. Here comes a gentleman with his wife on his arm ; he bows coldly to such and such a man, and he does not bow at all to such and such a woman. His wife naturally enough takes it for granted that he knows the man but slightly and the woman not at all. Confiding creature, how she would open her eyes, to HYPOCRISY. 25 be sure, did she fancy what is the simple truth — that the man is one of her husband's literally fastest friends, and the woman one of his most intimate ac- quaintances. Or the gentleman takes his wife to the Academy ball, and he passes, without a look or a nod, the very woman whose satin domino he has paid for, and whom he has come to the ball to meet. A model husband and father has a pew in Rev. Dr. Dash's church, and turns up the whites of his eyes every Sunday, though he swindles all the rest of the week. He subscribes largely to foreign mis- sions, though he was never known to give a cent to a beggar ; he is a sworn advocate of temperance, and an unrivaled judge of brandy ; he is a philanthro- pist, and pays the lowest wages; he is a humanitarian, and exacts the longest work ; he is a moralist, and steeped to the eyes in intrigue ; a man of honor, and cheats at his club at cards. Now, a woman's hypo- crisy is generally shown in little things, and affects trifles. It is also, to a certain extent, compulsory with her, and is but another name for the exigencies 26 HYPOCRISY. of etiquette, the demands of politeness. Women are hypocritical as regards society ; man is hypocritical as regards himself. A woman deceives you half the time to save your feelings ; a man deceives you al- ways to save himself. Chapter VII. SLANG. ^O, too, with one much to be lamented other evil of the day, the tendency to slang. We are told that the girls use slang— poor, petted, spoilt, giddy girls, so they do. But what of the slang of the boys, the stunning, nobby boys. Said one girl to another, one morning, as they were going to school — " We're too early ; we'll have to loaf around until the doors are opened." " Loaf around!" replied the other; "that is not a pretty expression." " Well, I'd like to know," said the re- proved girl, " how I'm to learn to talk properly, when I have three brothers harping about ' chin-mu- sic ' and ' cheese it,' and ' whoop 'em up,' and ' that's not your racket,' and that sort of talk all the time." And this is just the facts of the case, her slang is based upon and derived from his. 28 SLANG. Charley interlards his elegant conversation with such expressions as '* too thin,'' '* on a bust," and " no end of a swell," and " she's stunning/' Is Louisa to be sacrificed with your grammatical indig- nation if she beautifully hints at " sailing in," or ad- vises you to " wipe your chin," or alludes to her walk on Broadway as " giving the boys a treat.'' Again, is it fair in Charles to blame Louisa's slang and then to devote himself to the society of just those very girls who talk horse and use slang which he professes so to despise in Louisa. If Charles does not like slang in woman, why does he associate almost solely with women who use slang. Is it not because, after all, he can more easily appre- ciate and understand that sort of woman, and be- cause that sort of women are required to understand and appreciate him. The demand creates the sup- pl}', no doubt. Chapter VIII. THE HEIRESS HUNTER. J^OR years, for centuries, the world has heard of woman's loveless loves, her mercenary mar- riages, her marriage a la mode. Ever since jewels and gold began. Woman has sold herself unto man. In every novel we encounter the woman who dis- poses of herself, or is disposed of, for a bank-book and a four in hand. In every play we see the cold, cal- culating mother, who sells her daughter, or the still more calculating daughter, who sells herself. But, we never read anything of the men who consent to these bargains, who exchange purses for persons, who barter for beauty ; nor of the men who sell them- selves, who follow heiress-hunting as a profession. Woman has, at least, the shadow of an excuse for self sale, she is not allowed to support herself, and yet, she must be supported ; social position and its 30 THE HEIRESS HUNTER. adjuncts of wealth, are as essential to her as to a man. There are as many heiress-hunters as heir- hunters, and there is this much to be said in this con- nection. The man, who for money marries a woman, is a more deliberate wretch, than the woman who for money marries a man. He makes a matter of choice of it, she takes to it as a sheer matter of necessity. He is active in his lying, she is but a passive false- hood — she merely suffers herself to be made love to, but he is a direct dissimulator. Oh ! what a manly spectacle is presented to the world by this gold seeker of society, how he adorns his race, how he elevates our ideas of the possibilities of humanity Study him as he pursues the path of his perfidious courtship, listen to his elaborate falsehoods ; what a consummate actor, what a look he casts into his eyes, of a love that has no place in his heart, what an ac- cent he throws into his voice, of a passion that has no existence in his soul ; what a thorough master of detail, how he graduates his steps and composes his looks, and governs his actions all for one sole end, of THE HEIRESS HUNTER. 31 producing the required effect upon the woman who is to be at once his bride and banker ; what a pefect man ; how he takes advantage of a woman, how he speculates upon her loving bUndness, how he liter- lly coins her all confiding tenderness, how he winds his carressing arms about her waist ; imagin- ing all the while he is dipping his clutching fingers in her purse. Ah ! what a model of a man taken altogether ; a drone who has a sloth's dread of honest work, a false- sifier who makes a fine art of falsehood ; a thief, for he handles money to which he has no right ; a hypo- crite who attempts to deceive men ; a dastard who does deceive a woman ; a perjurer who would fain deceive his God. Chapter IX. THE NICE YOUNG MAN. ^HEN we must not forget to pay our respects to the nice young man — and appropos of this nice young man, who parts his hair in the middle and never has an idea, who is a little of a fop and a good deal of a fool, who is a living, breathing proof of the falsity of that scientific saw that " nature abhors a vacuum." This nice young man is only the male analogue to the poor creature, who from time im- memorial has been made the sport of every man who could write a line and who was in want of a subject, '^the silly girl." But never was any girl as un- pardonably silly as this nice young man, for the girl, though a fool, is at least a pretty fool, a graceful fool, a fool who knows how to dress and be interesting, a fool, too, who is a fool with some excuse. She is not expected or instructed to be much else, and has little chance to be otherwise. THE NICE YOUNG MAN, 33 But a male fool is a fool without excuse or re- demption ; he is about as attractive as a barber's pole ; a fool who lisps, who says ^' ith '' for is, and " wery '' for very, who mutilates his mother tongue whenever he uses his own. His stare is worse than his drawl, and his self-complacency is worse than either. Spite of his schooling at home he is a dunce, and spite of his tour abroad, he but illustrates the lines. How much a fool that has been sent to Rome 'Excells a fool that has been kept at home. And marriage that generally saves a female fool by transforming her into a mother, only stultifies still far- ther, the male fool, by giving him responsibilities and opportunities which he knows not what to do with. The fool of a wife may make the pattern of a mother, but the fool of a husband invariably makes the fool of a father. The silly girl of the period may develop into the sweet centre of the household. But the nice young male idiot can only glide with years into the nice old idiot. Because the silly girl is a fool on the surface, the fool of education and circumstances, but the " nice young man " is a fool by nature and a fool en grain. Chapter X. THE MODERN SPOON. T,ET me now direct your attention to the men of the period, viewed in their domestic and social relations. Now of course the man of the period, so- cially considered, is either married or single, though it must be confessed, some men so conduct them- selves that it is difficult to classify them, still though marriage does not much matter to the man of the period, even the most advanced man will admit that It does make some difference, so in our review we will pay our respects to the unmarried ones first — there are plenty of them. There is the sentimentaUst, for instance, the mod- ern "Spoon;'' now, he is a curious article; he is poetry plated, a perfect dictionary of quotations and he regards every woman as a species of clothes line — upon which to hang his borrowed sentiments. THE MODERN SPOON. 35 It is a mistake to suppose that sentimentality is con- fined to the female sex ; the fact is, the male of our species far surpasses, in this, any woman ; the female sentimentalist loves gush, but the male sentimentalist is a gusher — he is a perfect patent inexhaustible self- feeding machine for hand squeezing, sighing, eye making and miscellaneous soft nonsense, warranted to talk, look and act sentiment after its namby pamby milk and water fashion, to any woman, from the age of fifteen years to fifty, at any hour of the day or night, with or without provocation or pre- vious notice. The gusher is full of stock quota- tions, sugar coated, which he bestows indiscrimin- ately upon his slightest acquaintance at the slight- est notice. He crams Byron, and Swineburne and Owen Merrideth, and Coventry Patmore, and Bul- wer, and if a woman but looks his way, up goes his eyes, and out comes a quotation. I knew a gusher once, I have taken good care never to know another since ; he satiated, with his sentiment, every woman in the neighborhood, from his servant girl to his 36 THE MODERN SPOON. grandmother. He was introduced to me on a North River steamboat, ere he ended his bow he had commenced to m^ake love ; he gave me five quo- tations in five minutes, and had exhausted all the possibilities of poetry ere he reached the Highlands. He was one of those men who construe a hand- shake into '' persevere," and a smile into " you will succeed.'' Now, there is no real heart about such men, they are all tongue, their admiration for women is superficial, their praise is not sincere, it is mere flattery. Chapter XL THE GENERAL LOVER. gTILL another class, who for want of a more speci- fic name, we will call the general lover. Now this individual differs from the mere sentimentalist, in that he is no sentimentalist at all ; he does not dabble m sentiment, he dashes into love. His love is genuine, too, while it lasts, only it is far too general ; he loves love for its own sake, the particular kind of woman he happens to be in love with at the time makes no particular difference. Hj :s a victim to what the poets call " the strong necessity of loving," and he falls in love with every women who crosses his path. He meets a quiet little beauty, one of those home bodies, who make such dehghtful daughters, such charming sisters, such delicious wives ; at once he fancies that he loves her, and leads her to fancy that he does so. He hums " Hou;e Sweet Home," and 38 THE GENERAL LOVER. dreams of domestic bliss and slippers, tenderness and tea, with his little home-body beaming and darning at his side. When lo! at a ball he meets a woman of an entirely different order, a dashing creature, who iotes on Strauss, who is the best waltzer of her set, ho wears the longest of trains, the lowest of bodices ihe most elaborate of toilettes^ whose very breath is society, and whose native element is champagne. At once he falls in love with number two, abjures his dreams of stay-at-home evenings and has visions of no end of suppers and unlimited quadrilles with his dashing fair one for a partner alike in gastronomy and Terpsichore. Now he is no falsehood, he is only so susceptible ; he is not wicked, he is only weak ; not alone a lover of the period but a lover for a period. Chapter XII. PIECE-MEAL ADMIRERS. ^HESE are a class of men who conceive for a while a tremendous but temporary attachment for a woman, not on account of the woman herself, not for her mental or moral qualities, but for some special physical charm which she possesses ; one such man will adore a woman for her snowy shoulders, or her plump arms, or her piercing eyes, or her blonde hair; another will hang his heart on a l()-inch waist, another will stay his, soul on a Spanish ankle or a French boot — their ideas go no further, they don't care a rap whether the woman with the worshipped hair has anything in her head ; they don't care whether the divinity with the bust has in that bust a heart, whether his angel with the foot and ankle has any aspirations, principles or affections. No, he cares no more for the soul of woman than does a Turk. 40 PIECE-MEAL ADMIRERS. I once knew such a man who not only adored a woman to distraction, but could give, as, he thought, three good reasons for being distracted. '' Her fine complexion, her magnificent figure, and her glorious golden hair." Now, it so happened, to my certain knowledge, that her complexion was a bottle, her figure w^as pad, and her hair was a dye. He madly worshipped a goddess who could be manufactured for five dollars. These men marry these women sometimes, and then, Heaven help the woman if she has heart, and soul, or anything besides the particular blonde hair, or Spanish ankle which the man has married, for she has aroused in him only a passion ; and sickness, or in- deed a pimple, will dispel such affection. From piece-meal admirers, pray Heaven deliver us. Chapter XIII. IMAGINATIVE MEN. ^HESE are a class of men, who are characteristi- cally imaginative ; not intellectually, but senti- mentally ; poets not in their ideas, but in their pas- sions ; men whose affections and desires, such as they are,^ * * demand high-seasoning, crave spiced food, whose loves must be flavored with a sauce piqimnte of insecurity to give them zest. With these men it is the first requisite m fruit, that it should not fall till, it is with some diiBcuhy shaken ; with them, it is a necessary essential of the course of true love, that it should not run smooth. In other words, with these men, the supreme charm in a woman, is the su- preme difficulty of her conquest. Now in ordinary life, these creatures are neither more persevering or courageous then their fellows, but, in any case where their love affairs are interested, they will pause at 42 IMAGINATIVE MEN. no difficulties, and hesitate at no risks ; they will work day and night, for weeks and months, to obtain what might be gained elsewhere, for the mere ask- ing ; they will encounter every danger, to storm what under other circumstances, would be surrendered to them without a battle. The orthodox course of an ordinary courtship, would drive these men to the verge of despair ; it would never enter into their heads, to propose to a woman who would merely, blushingly tell them to " ask pa." A recognized honeymoon with all the orthodox etceteras, would be torture ; a marriage with all the usual accom- paniments of " take her and be happy my children, God bless you both," would be equivalent, in their ears, to '^off with his head, so much for Bucking- ham." And, with these men, a woman whose moods could be calculated upon, she would never enter into their calculations ; to men like these, a woman to be worth the study, must be like X in Algebra, an unknown quantity ; to such men, a woman to be a divinity, must have a spice of IMAGINATIVE MEN. 43 the . They must have obstacles in their path, or they will not advance a step ; courtship to them, must be a perpetual challenge ; there must be hos- tile fathers, opposmg mothers, big brothers and watchful guardians ; there must be houses they must not visit, and women, they must not see ; then, at all hazards, they will find or make a way to see those very women in those very houses. And these men make very uncertain husbands ; for the moment a woman is no longer surrounded with difficulties, she ceases to be an object of attraction , the instant she steps from insecurity to security, that instant she falls from adoration to indifference. The only possible w^ay for a woman to enchain these men, is to elude them. The only way she can lead them to desire matrimony, is never to marry them. If she wishes to deny thom nothing, she must refuse them everything. Chapter XIV, GRAND LAMAS. ^ND here let me allude en passsant to a class of men— men for whom I presume many of my fair readers will have but little sympathy — natur- ally enough, too, as these men usurp the essentially feminine prerogative of being adored rather than adoring. 1 allude to that class of men who require to be made love to. Thank Heaven, they are the excep- tion to the rule. The men of whom 1 speak are not necesarily vain of their persons ; they are not snobs or fools, far from it ; they are generally the reverse ; but they entertain a supreme idea of their own su- periority of mind and nobility of soul. And with these men it is the first requisite of a woman, in their eyes, that she should fully believe in their possession of these qualities, and should bow down and worship their possessor. With these men the sexes are re- GRAND LAMAS. 45 versed — man must be adored, and woman must do the adoring ; he must be courted, and she must do the courting — it is with the women to decide whether such as he be worth the wooing. Such a man makes a perfect heathen idol of himself; builds a pagoda all around him, and there stands or sits to be worshipped. He will endure any amount of in- cense and prostration ; he will swallow down his own divinity in very large doses. And then, when you have passed your days and nights in worshipping at the shrine of this wonderful god, you must not, for one moment, expect him to smile on you — be satisfied if he so much as winks at his worshipper. Yet these inflated creatures are easily enough managed, by a wise woman who understands them, — and will take the trouble — through their vanity. God as he thinks he is, you can lead him like a gander. Cast sheep's eyes at him, heave sighs, make him believe you cannot resist him, and so you will yourself become irresistible. Make him think that you think that, do what you 46 GRAND LAMAS. Will, you never can win him, and you win him at once. Make him believe that you believe that, do what ou will, you can never approach him in intel- lect, in judgment — in fact, in any way ; that you can >nly puSS your time looking up to this wonderful god in mute adoration, and he will be at your feet. You play with these Grand Lamas and Brahmasand Mikadoes just as a fisherman plays with a trout — you fish for him by keeping quiet, and, baiting the hook with a profound worship for his pet weakness, and you land him high and dry on the matrimonial shore, and you keep your hook in his divine nose ever after, and lead this 2:reat mogul about as you would a pet bear — by constantly tugging at his vanity. II Chapter XV. PIG-HEADED MEX. "^OW, of a directly opposite class, yet just as easily managed by a wise woman, are the weak, suspi- cious, pig-headed men, of whom so often I hear my sex complain. ' Oh ! he is a perfect pig," said a wife to me the other day, alluding, of course, to her hus band. '* Well, my dear/' said I, calmly, " why then don't you treat him like a pig, when you really want him to go one way, pretend to drive him the other. It IS all very simple ; there is nothing easier than the matrimonial management of man, it only requires a study of the natural history of the animal. ;\nd I would here advise the introduction of this branch of science into all our female schools, for there is no telling when a girl may meet with any of these types of our social menagerie. Chapter XVf. THE SPOILT MAN ^HE spoilt man of the period is generally a pet actor, or a popular tenor ; probable he sings only fairly, or he acts only passably. Perchance he has only his good looks or his easy assurance to recom- mend him, but at any rate, there is a something about this thrice-favored man which takes the town by storm. And once havmg taken the town it is per- fectly astonishmg how m.uch the town will take from him. He can accomplish more for his own ambition or aggrandizement in one calendar month than a better man can in one century by the calendar, And while his '' taking power " lasts this spoilt man of the period is as vain and as petted and as wor- shipped as any belle. He is as much adored by women as ever woman was by man, and he is as much addk-d by the adoration. This curled darling of the period THE SPOILT MAN. 49 lives in rooms luxuriously furnished, on a fashionable street in the close vicinity of the avenue ; he keeps quite an establishment, and one of the chief duties of his valet is to see that he receives regularly his daily mail of female letters. These epistles are very numerous, almost as nu- merous as duns, they are counted by the score ; one would think that our spoilt man was a prime minis- ter, or had advertised for a wife or a boarding house. These letters are, all of them, in fine envelopes, some in light blue, some in delicate cream color, some are square, some three-cornered, and all are per- fumed and directed in feminine handwriting. They come from all portions of the city, but the majority were sent from the west side and were mdited by Flora McFlimsey. The spoilt man receives them and reads them in bed, smiling superciliously the while, and stroking his mustache as he reads. Evidently he feels like a benignant idol receiving the adoration of his self-de- luded worshippers. 50 THE SPOILT MAN. Then he yawns, and rings for his toilette apparatus; then he dawdles over his breakfast, and then he pro- poses to exhibit himself on the promenade to a be- witched world. He puts his letters in his pocket, ere he starts ; he never travels without them ; he considers them as his trophies : he views them in the same light an In- dian does his scalps, and, just as the red man boasts of his conquests freely to his world, so the spoilt man of the period boasts of his. He is as vain of the silly notes he receives as ever Hole-in- the- Wall, or Sitting Bull, or Grizzly Bear, were of their bloody trophies, and, as the Indian does not hesitate to exhibit his scalps to his world, so the spoilt man never hesitates to exhibit his. It IS well known a favorite actor, much in demand as a divinity among the females of his day, had three or four intimate friends to whom he was wont to toss his notes when he had done with them. While not many years ago a well-worshipped tenor openly boasted on the street of one of our large cities, wav- THE SPOILT MAN, 5 1 ing a package of letters he had just received, that he held the reputation of half the fashionable women in the town in his hands. The truth is, that the spoilt man of the period is weaker and vainer and more consequential than any belle ; he is more conceited of his conquests among the silliest of women than any woman is of her suc- cess with the wisest of men. Just look at the airs and graces which the man puts on. With what con- descension he bows, with what impertinence he stares, and, if he chances to meet one of his foohsh fair adorers, how grandly he smiles, as though he really thought himself the god she thinks him. And when he drives his dog-cart along the avenue in the afternoon how ineffable is his self-satisfaction. You would fancy he was Buddha giving himself an airing, and, when he sees the girls nudging each other and looking after him, how he tugs at his collar, or strokes his whiskers, or beams from his eyes. Ah ! 1 have sometimes thought that it is just as well that society insists that man should do the courting and 52 THE , SPOILT MAN. that woman should be the courted. For, imagine it to be the other way, fancy what a world it would be when such a creature as this was the recognized ob- ject of female addresses. How he would strut, to be sure ; how he would crush too presumptions crino- Imes , how he would awe us poor women. Why, you would never dare to approach this mon- ster of conceit, save on your bended knee, and after you had crawled humbly to his temple, and pros- trated yourself on his doorstep, his valet would condescend to inform you m answer to your modest supplications, that ** his Royal Nibs was already some fifteen women deep, but, that if you would kneel an hour or two longer, you might probably be permit- ted a five seconds sight of his Imperial Impudence." And then, when you were permitted to totter into his presence, you would be allowed an extended finger, or to kiss the tip of his coat-tail, you would be favored with a passing glance from those majestic eyes, you would be honored by a stray word from those exalted lips, you would be presented with his Royal photo- THE SPOILT MAN. 53 graph, which you would be expected to worship on the spot, then, an attendant would take your name, and add it to the army of adorers already enrolled in the king's album, a list of whom would be published regularly in the Home Journal. Then, with a pro- found kotow on your part, and a ta-ta dear, ta-ta on his, the presentation would be over, and you would be expected to be a happy and an honored female, for a month, at least. Chapter XVIl. THE GOSSIP. T ET i^G ^^^ show you the tale bearer, the gossip, the slanderer. Here you interrupt me, and tell me I have forgotten my subject that I am writing on men not women, and that, therefore, I have nothing to do with gossip and scandal. But, 1 beg your par- don, I am stickmg to my text, and when 1 speak of a gossip who wears a coat and a scandal monger in pantaloons, I mean a real being, who far surpasses in this Ime, any petticoat slayer of reputations in exist- ence. It is a mistake that has been made by men, wittingly and unwittingly, from time immemorial. A mistake in which women have allowed themselves to ac- quiesce, and have done themselves gross injustice by acquiescing, that the woman is />ar excellence, the back-biter and slanderer of her race. But, is it THE GOSSIP. 55 true, does the tea table produce more gossip than the stock board? Is the old maid a whit more addicted to slander than club men ? Let us see. Young Clarence Augustus Von Knickbocker some- thing, IS wending his way, about 1 1 o^clock one fine winter's morning, towards that mysterious locality where fortunes are made and reputations are lost, called " down town." He meets old Fitz Boodle, well known '* on the street/^ the two men exchange the compliments of the day, join their forces and talk — on the politics of the time, oh ! of course ; on the great mercantile operations of the period, with- out a doubt. Not a bit of it; they discuss Mrs. Noodle's reception, or Miss Jones' german, they revel in the memories thereof with as much gusto as any two of the women who attended either — and their recollections are iniinite of both. Not a detail has escaped their eyes or their tongues — they recall every fact, however trivial, the corset waist worn by Miss Robbins, which displayed so strikingly her skinny shoulders and lean bust, the long trail so 56 THE GOSStP. awkwardly earned by Miss Shoddy, and then the way in which Blunders led the german, and the way in which that Skinner woman, (who they do say is getting a divorce from her cad of a husband) flirted with that good looking scape-grace, young Alexis. And then they w^onder where the duce Mrs. Y. got her diamonds from, and significantly hint that though old Bamboozle has taken advantage of the bankrupt act his wife had a small fortune on her back that night. And then by degrees the precious pair of full-grown men get down to the piece de resistance the choice particular scandal of the day, the rumored trouble between Charley Wilkins and his wife, and her penchant for that dashing foreigner, the rich Cuban. Neither party knows anything about the matter, but they draw freely on their imagination, and, for sheer love of gossip, keep on stabbing the poor woman's character every step they take till they reach their respective offices. There ** stock " is the business, but scandal is the occupation. Central, Lake Shore, Union Pacific and THE GOSSIP. 57 Western Union are dabbled in for greed, but the Wilkins-Cuban scandal is dwelt upon with gusto. Every new man who comes in brings with him his "points" concerning the ''street," and also his ''points" concerning the scandal. One knows the Cuban, and he forthwith retails all his budget of his friend's amours ; another is acquainted with the husband, and he freely retails all his friend's suspicions; a third knows all about Mrs. W., and he is most in demand of all, and dashes off into all sorts of stories, true or false as the case may be, but all serving to make the poor woman more than ever the town talk. As the day grows apace, the slander grows worse ; as the men go up town they hear new gossip, some grossly exaggerated, some wholly false, but all tend- ing to soil and to destroy. What was merely a flirt- ation on Broad street has become an intrigue at Union square, till finally the scandal reaches the clubs, and here it revels in license, and, ere the night is done, the woman is riddled to death, to moral and social death, without a shred of reputation left to bide her in. 58 THE GOSSIP. Not one of these men but has been a guest at the talked of husband's table. Not one of these men but has been favored with the friendly intimacy of the slandered wife. There has been in this no direct malice, and this only makes the case the more terrible. The woman has been destroyed through thoughtlessness, through recklessness, through man's sheer love of gossip and scandal. Chapter XVIII. THE SLANDERER AND BRAGGART. ^UT let me now introduce to you that pest of modern social life, that Pariah of civilization, that wholly merciless and unmanly male, the slanderer and the braggart. This creature is to be found any- where and everywhere ; he is emphatically a man about town ; you may encounter him on the prome- nade, you may come across him at the club, you may meet him in society; all times and all places are alike to him for he can lie and traduce in them all. In nine cases out of ten he is an arrant knave, a perverse falsifier. He manufactures his destroying facts ; like the spider he evolves from his own base self the web in which he emeshes his victim, and even in the tenth instance, when by some strange accident he speaks the truth, he grossly distorts or yet more grossly exag- gerates it. A trifle light as air, a smile or a caress be- 6o THE SLANDERER AND BRAGGART. Stowed him in an unguarded moment by a trusting,too confiding fair one, a kiss or an embrace given by a loving woman who thought she was loving a man ; these are perverted by his worthlessness and pub- lished to the world. He is ingenious too, a perfect master of the mysteries of inuendo ; what he says is trivial, what he implies is terrible. He is a Talleyrand in the impressive, yet untranslatable language of shrugs ; a master of the language of the eye ; with him a look can imply a volume of slander; a shrug can signify a volume of detraction. He is wholly merci- less ; no consideration can withhold his tongue ; no sentiment of honor in a man bids him respect the honor of a woman. This creature is also ineffably vain and conceited and withal morbidly susceptible to slight; it is either his morbid vanity or his yet more morbid pique that lies at the very foundation of all his lies. If a woman loves him, he slays her on the altar of his vanity ; if she loves him not, he sacrifices her ruthlessly as a holocaust to his pride. There is but one human THE SLANDERER AND BRAGGART. 6 1 emotion to which he is susceptible, and that is fear — the slanderer of women and boaster of triumphs among women, is generally, thank Heaven, a coward among men. A woman's char- acter is safe from his attack only when she can command a champion. He trembles before a beauty who has a brother. He is of all created beings the most to be dreaded and the most to be despised — of all the weeds that fester in the tropical luxuriance of our modern social civilization at once the most poison- ous and the foulest is the slanderer and the braggart. Chapter XIX. THE "MASHER." ^ND just here I will take the opportunity to intro- duce to you another type of the pests of the pe- riod, from whom I am very sure every woman has at one time or another, in her own person, suffered. A man as ridiculous as he is utterly contemptible — the " masher" of the period. I must beg my readers' par- don for thus obtruding the slang of the period upon them, but it is absolutely necessary in this instance. Victor Hugo, one of the world's greatest living authors, has borne testimony to the expressiveness of slang, and really, in this instance, there is no other word in the language that so describes the creature I would designate. This "masher," then, is a being in pantaloons who makes it about the only real business of his life to form the acquaintance of women in his own peculiar way, and to improve that acquaintance THE "MASHER." 63 in his own peculiar fashion. This specimen of the male menagerie exists in large numbers and abso- lutely,during the promenade hours, infests Broadway and Fifth Avenue. I think that an account of the creature's nature or acquired habits will be of inter- est. Now, this '* masher" has generally a good looking face, though sometimes, it is true, he is as ugly as possible,and dependent solely on his native impudence to carry him along But as a rule, a passable share of good looks, combined with an everlasting smirk, and a mustache, are important items of his stock in trade. He wears good clothes too, thanks to the credit system, and has a certain amount of money and time at his disposal — generally more time than money. He may be either old or young, married or single. Now, it sometimes happens that the '' masher " is a club man. In this instance, he is always to be found during the promenade hours at the club and hotel windows overlooking Broadway and Fifth Avenue; there he stands for hours biting his cane, or with his lazy, light gloved fingers stroking airily his 64 THE *♦ MASHER. whiskers and staring- with all his might at every woman who passes. He might be designated the champion starer of the period, for he is all eyes. True, he sees not, he cares not to see the beauties of nature as shown in fleecy cloud, or tinted sky, or leafy tree. True, he sees not, he cares not to see, the beauties of art as they are to be found in picture, in statue and m poem. True, he sees not the marvels of enterprise which m the great city are reared on every side of him. But what of that? he sees what to him is of vastly more importance ; he sees every curve of a woman's foot, every glance of a woman's eye as she passes. He ogles her as she steps along, he smirks at her as she glides by ; if she be a modest woman he seeks to stare her out of countenance, and if bethinks he sees a chance he bows, bows with an air of con- ceited puppyism; bows with a smile as silly as it is im- pertinent. He may bow in such a manner that the lady for the moment fancies that she has somewhere met the creature before, and returns his salutation. That is enough; then, with an ineffably suggestive THE "MASHER." 65 smile directed to his fellow starers, he proceeds to talk about his unconscious victim and will then and there manufacture twenty triumphs over the woman he has seen but once. But, as a rule, the " masher" is to be found in all his glory upon Broadway. Walking, and bowing, and smiling — he does nothing else — he is a peripathetic piece of impertinence, a walking insult, ever ready to take his hat off at the slightest glance of a woman, while she is ready to take his head off. If you stop to look in the shop windows, lo ! to your mingled horror and disgust, the grinning creature is at your side. If you walk quietly along he is at your elbow, keeping step with you, if you hope to elude him and hail a stage, you have scarcely taken your seat, you raise your eyes, and lo ! the wretch offers to hand your fare. Many a pretty woman's out-door life is rendered a burden by reason of this intoler- able nuisance, this would-be-picker-up-of- women, this ineffably conceited puppy who fancies there is enough in his tolerable countenance and intolerable impu- dence to cause a woman to forget alike, modesty, (>e THE " MASHER.'^ etiquette and common sensed and to form his street acquaintance only that he may boast of her among his curbstone corner cronies. He is a street nuisance, worse, by all odds, than the lead pencil man or the pin venders, worse than even the winter's slush or the summer's dust and he should be removed by city ordinance, exterminated by contract. Will our city father's think of this ? I know one woman who will take the contract. Chapter XX. THE PATENT CHAMPION AMERICAN CALLER. "Now, all men do not make calls. Many regard them as a bore, hence the club; where, removed from the restraints of female influence the ** lords of creation" can assert their proud prerogative of play- ing draw poker, and staying out till two or three in the morning. To such a club creature as this, woman, unless in the shape of a housekeeper or a washwoman, is a myth. Then, there is the average man of the world, who is not quite so confirmed a clubite as this, and who makes calls occasionally, on New Years, and after a party, just enough to keep himself on the books of society. But outside and beyond these positive and confirmed anchorites, there is the great mass of the day, the men who pay calls regularly, and it is of this class that I would speak, and I assure you, making calls is a good social institution, and de- 68 PATENT CHAMPION AMERICAN CALLER. cidedly beneficial, particularly to the men who make them. And now for the portrait of the most inveter. ate call-maker I ever knew — the patent champion caller of the Metropolis, whose pen-picture will be recognized by all who know him. His life closely resembles that of an orthodox Christian, in being a perpetual " call," though there is no '' saint's rest '* about it. His pocket Bible is substantially a visiting list, which he consults as zealously as the saint does the Scripture. He regards every woman as a female accession to his list. He keeps the city directory to ob- tain from it the address of anybody whose card he may lose. He divides the city into two portions — the fashionable, where he visits, and the unfashionable, where he does not. He keeps a call register, in which he faithfully registers his calls, and notes their details precisely, as a Christian would note his re- ligious experiences, m his diary. Monday Evening. — Had a refreshing call on Miss Snooks. Tuesday Evenmg. — Enjoyed a delightful experi- ence in my tete-a-tete with Miss Brown. PATENT CHAMPION AMERICAN CALLER. 69 Wednesday Evening. — Had a season of awakening in my call on Miss Shoe and Leather. Thursday Evening. — Passed a profitable hour with Miss Haifa-Million, and so on for six months in a similar strain. Fully believing that as the good old hymn says : " He is a pilgrim and a stranger, He can tarry but a night," he makes the voluntary pilgrimage of society, and passes his life in journeying from house to house. He takes his cane with him for staff, and his card case serves him for scrip, and thus accoutered, he goes around the social world in eighty days or nights, more or less. It is calculated that next to a postman or a lightn- ing rod agent, the "patent champion American caller" walks more than any other class of men. He is a hard working man, this P. C. A. C. ; none but those who have tried it and failed, can realize how hard it is to keep *' up " a visiting list. Poor fellow, he is but a dog in a treadmill, a poodle with gloves and a card 70 PATENT CHAMPION AMERICAN CALLER. case, in an everlasting social treadmill, or to use a more refined simile, a modern martyr, a smiling scented, soft headed, swallow-tailed, small talking martyr to modern social custom. Such as he is, the P. C. A. C. is a great American institution, along with the peddler and the quack doctor, and the Ameri- can Eagle, and the rest of our institutions. In fact, our American girls could spare all the rest better than they could spare him ; for what would become of our " patent champion American girls " without their " patent champion American caller." But '' one star differs from another star in glory " and so callers are not all alike, any more than any other saints, or fools, or martyrs. Thus we have the eccentric caller, eccentric not in himself but in his manner of calling. " The comet caller " I would style him — his rule about calling seems to be to have no rule at all, he will not visit you once in six months perhaps, why he has stayed away, you know not, neither do you know why he calls to-night, he may stay five minutes, he may spend the entire evening, PATENT CHAMPION AMERICAN CALLER. Jl he may call to-morrow and every night for a week, and — he may not call again for a twelve month. An- other will call every week, always on the same night and always at the same hour. Like a railroad train he is due at 8.30, and Hke a railroad train he will leave at a specific time. 1 call him the clock-work caller^ the very antipodes of the " Comet" and a man to be depended upon. Then there is the '' Chameleon ca»ller " for just as the Chameleon changes his hues, and is never the same color long, so he changes his mood and is never the same mood long. Every call exhibits him in a new light, every visit is a revelation. You never see the same man twice. Sometimes he is in a philosophic mood and calls like a college profes- sor. Sometimes he is in a sportive mood and calls like a school-boy, or rather behaves like one. Now he affects the swell and will out-dandy a dandy; then, in his next visit he will be in the most free and easy undress style imaginable ; again he will affect the sentimental mood and quote poetry, &c., and I some- times think he adopts these various moods for the 72 PATENT CHAMPION AMERICAN CALLER. very purpose of being thought odd and interesting. Then there is Mr. Wiseman, a very shrewd, ele- gant young gentleman, who pays his calls always in the morning, as he told me once in confidence, just as I now tell the reader in confidence — '' you see," said Wiseman, '*if you call on a lady in the evening she is prepared for you, she is a warrior accustomed to fight under the gas light — she meets you with her armor on — she has the advantage of time and place. But if you call on her in the morning she is at a dis- advantage and she meets you disarmed. The very fact of your calling upon her always in the morning causes her to regard you in a different light from other men — she cannot lump you with the herd of evening callers, but has to give you in her mind a place by yourself. And then you can find out the real character of a woman so much better in the day time. Women are artificial at best, but they are doubly so by gas light; gas light goes with glamour, remove the one and you often get rid of the other. Call on a belle at eight in the evening, you will only see the PATENT CHAMPION AMERICAN CALLER. 73 belle, but visit her at — say 1 1 A. M. — you won't find the belle, she ain't-up, but take my word for it, you will stumble upon the woman herself. You learn more of a woman's real nature in one morning than in a dozen evenings, and as for opportunity, there is more facility for sentiment than at midnight, if men did but know it." So said Mr. Wiseman, and I really think the man was wise for saying it. But there is Mr. Openair, who was with woman wiser still; now his style of making calls was never to make calls at all, as such, yet his visits were always satisfactory to all parties. The way he managed it was this : he was a philosopher and had studied human nature, he would just drop in and ask the lady to accompany him for a ride, or to the theatre, or the opera, or to Delmonico's for lunch, or to Bigot's for ices, or some- where for something, so it was a sort of pic-nic or a pleasure party or anything except a mere formal call; consequently the lady always associates him with something agreeable, and wasn't he successful ? — why he made more progress in her good graces in one call 74 PATENT CHAMPION AMERICAN CALLER. of this kind than he would have made in a course of ordinary house visits. *' Always get a woman out in the open air with you if you can, never make calls between walls," said this youthful sage, and I believe from what 1 know of myself and others of my sex, that this Talleyrand among the ladies was in the right. If 1 were a man I would practice his pre- cepts. Chapter XXI. RICH YOUNG BACHELORS. ^HIS has been called a "non-marrying- age'' and with truth; this fact is acknowledged and re- gretted on every side. Essayists have discussed it, moralists have deprecated it, but none have denied it. Never was there an age when there was less marrying than the present, not even in that era ot which historians treat when Rome, the mistress of the world, was on the verge of being depopulated because her masters would be bachelors. Historians tell us that all manner of bribes were offered to the bachelors of those days if they would only marry. " If they would only find, Some handsome Roman lady just Suited to their mind." But in vain the Emperor threatened, in vain he promised; neither threat nor promise could make the bachelors of the Eternal City anything but eternally ^6 RICH YOUNG BACHELORS. bachelors. And each year that he remains unmar- ried seems to increase his desire to remain wifeless. Now according to the assurance tables, the older a widower is the more likely he is to marry again, and the older a bachelor is the less likely is he to marry at all. According to these singular but carefully compiled and accurate estimates, from twenty years to thirty the probabilities of a widower marrying in a year is nearly three times as great as those of a bachelor, at thirty it is four times and so on till at sixty the prob- abilities of a widower marrymg in a year are eleven times those of a bachelor. After the age of thirty the probabilities of a bach- elor marrying decreases rapidly . It is indeed sin- gular to remark how confirmed each class becomes in its condition, how little likely is a bachelor to break through his settled habits and solitary state, and on the other hand how the widowers each year evince a stronger and stronger inclination to hug something more substantial than grief. Our rich young bache- RICH YOUNG BACHELORS, 77 lors are the curled darlings of the nation, for them the mothers plot and the daughters pine ; they are the Alpha and Omega of the social world, the real centre of the fashionable earth. What a favored lot is theirs ! Nothing to do and everything to enjoy. Morniag, noon, and night, spring, summer, and win- ter, at home and abroad, the butterfly bachelor is alike the envy of his own sex and the idol of ours. The belle has been from the age of Juvenal derided and burlesqued, she has been pronounced frivolous, she has been condemned as ridiculous, she has been censured as extravagant — we are told that she makes a high priest of her milliner and falls down and worships the last new bonnet and goes raving mad about French heels — that she wastes thousands upon trifles and makes a trifle of squandering thousands — that she walks against nature and talks against common sense, that she has no idea of the value of time nor the meaning of responsibility. Too true all this of her. but more than this of him. He bows down and worships himself, he makes gods of his senses, divinities of his 73 RICH YOUNG BACHELORS. appetites and regards the whole world as the temple of his own gratification. He dotes on billiards, gets into a craze about the turf. He is the disciple of the pool-room, the apostle of the wine-room, the high priest of the card-room. He wastes the fruits of a year in the follies of a night, a revenue is risked on a wager, a competence is staked on a whim, an estate is swallowed in an orgie. He sacrifices his constitu- tion to cooks, and his digestion to a dinner, and goes limping through the world, the best part of his life a victim to the gout, the great Nemesis of his indis- cretions. Now that the belle of the season is extravagant there is no denying; William Allen Butler has im- mortalized her pecuniary recklessness and dry goods desperation in his never dying verse and so long as ''Nothing to Wear" is read, woman on this head can have nothing to say. But, in the name of fair play and figures, what is the extravagance of a belle, com- pared, item for item, with the extravagance of a bache- for. Why money to him is no object, if its object is kiCH YOUNG BACHELORS. 79 himself. There is his yacht, then his establishment in town, and his establishment in the country, then there are his stables and his equipages, then his club expenses are enormous, and his dinner parties and his supper parties, and his personal expenses, too, are enormous — why his bill for cigars which are a man's mere luxury, dwarfs any woman's bill for bonnets, which are a woman's absolute necessity. His wine account balances any woman's dress account, and as for his tailor's bill, only his tailor can imagine. He has his costly trifles, too, just like a woman ; he in- dulges in jewelry, has 2i penchant for diamonds, culti- ^'ates a passion for neckties, in which he is as fastidi- ous as any girl over her ribbons. He even conde- scends to make a specialty of gloves and perfumes and bon bons, and is as enthusiastic and expensive in canes as any girl in parasols. I tell you the belle does not waste one dollar to the bachelor's fifty, his extravagance renders her, in comparison, a perfect model of economy. And he is just as frivolous as she. In the name of So RICH YOUNG BACHELORS. common honesty and every day truth, let us hear no more of the pettiness of woman as measured by the mightiness of man. Let us cease this cant about the immensity of the male and the inanity of the female. Woman is too often nonsensical enough — but what is to be expected of a creature enveloped in cobwebs and educated in sunbeams, who is reared from the cradle in a hot house atmosphere, who is persistently fed on milk and sweetmeats, and who is studiously kept apart from all the lofty ambitions of the world. Is it a wonder that without great opportunities her life is small ? But man has from his birth the world at his feet. No cobwebs restrain him — he is not brought up in a conservatory — he eats strong meats and drinks strong drink — he is allowed plenty of mental air and abundance of soul exercise. Yet with all his vast opportunities, what has he done ? What use have our rich young bachelors made of their vast privil- eges ? I will tell you — they have given dinners and suppers by the score, they have entertained, at Del- RICH YOUNG BACHELORS, 8 1 monico's, Flora McFlimsey and her chaperone^ they have entertained elsewhere Floras who need no chaperone, they have flirted, and danced and gallanted, they have driven dog carts and four-in-hands, they have kept blooded stock and fancy dogs — they are critics in cigars, connoisseurs in wine, experts at draw-poker — they are as full reservoirs of prattle as are their sisters, and are as familiar with the latest creme de la creme scandal as are their grand- moth- ers. Yet I would not be unjust, and it is but fair to say that many of our rich young bachelors have done much to redeem their class. Among them may be found men who have brains enough to be independ- ent of their money, as well as money enough to be independent of their brains, men who are liberal, or- iginal ; they not only own yachts, but sail them ; own ideas and develope them. They have brought ail manly sports into repute, and polo into popularity; they have refined athletic sports into fine arts, they have elevated yachting into heroism. They combine 82 RICH YOUNG BACHELORS. the elegant with the manly, they unite the Apollo with the Hercules. But after all, thirty years of leis- ure and millions of money ought to yield something more than grace and muscle. Taken for all and all, the rich young bachelors of our country have not fulfilled their measure, they have scarcely even reached the standard of our maids. What bachelor has done as much for human- ity as Miss Burdett Coutts ? What young bachelor of the period has honored human nature like Flor- ence Nightingale? And in point of morals, the girl of the period, friv- olous, extravagant, inane, as she may be, she is a very saint, a veritable Madonna, when compared with the average young bachelor. True, we hear old women over their tea and cards picking at their sex; true, we hear young men over their wine and a late cigar des- cant on female coquetry and folly, and criticise with the air of a Cato the utter senselessness of female amusements, and suggestively shrug their shoulders at feminine fondness for French novels and masked RICH YOUNG BACHELORS. 83 balls. But the fact stands, the pleasure and amuse- ment of the girl of the period are comparatively harmless ; follies, probably — dangerous follies, per- haps — but only fond follies, evincing rather a vacant head than a vicious heart ; whereas the pleasures and amusements of the bachelors of the period are pleasures and amusements which the woman ot his set share not with him. They are either such in which woman enters not to elevate; m which there is no place or thought for her; or they are such as can only be participated in by woman when she has ceased to be womanly. And the belle is ever ready to leave her follies at his bidding, she ever seeks to win him from his graver errors, but he shuts his eyes and he closes his ears, and remains a hopeless bachelor consecrated to his ivealth, his vices and his club. The club—2iS our social Hamlet would say, '' Aye ! there's the rub, there's the respect that makes bach- elorhood of so long a life." The modern belle should hate the modern club, it is her rival and the enemy of the modern home. Chapter XXll. MARRIED FLIRTS. ^UT having paid our respects to the avowedly unmistakeably unmarried portion of the male community, we now proceed to glance at a large and constantly increasing class of the men of the period, who for aught we can see, or know, or judge, from their relations with woman in society, may be either married or single ; these debatable men form an im- portant element of modern life. There are scores of men in every social set, whom it would require a de- tective to discover whether they were husband or bachelor. Among these dubious and mysterious males I rank the flirts, for flirtation has no sex. I know that when most people say ** flirts," they mean females, but this is a slander, one of a thou- sand, against us poor women. Men profess flirtation, they graduate in it, they practice it, they are all the MARRIED FLIRTS. 85 time on the look-out for it. and actively engaged in it. And the men flirt quite as freely married as single. We have heard constantly from moralists and minis- ters of that social monster the " flirting modern wife,'* the married female flirt but so far, moralist and minister have held their peace concerning that rival monstrosity in our social menagerie, the flirt- ing husband, the male married flirt. Why ? the latter animal certainly exists, and this flirting husband has much more license and opportunity than has the flirting wife, for she is generally known as married, and universally talked about, while he is not talked about, for the very simple reason that he is not half the time known as married. The male married flirt seems to regard marriage as a sort of accident, scarcely worth mentioning, a trifle which he will not obtrude upon the notice of society. I know of a very recent case in what is called " best society ol the Metropolis," wherein a husband of some ten years standing, with a wife in the country and two daughters at boarding school, carried on a flirtation 86 MARRIED FLIRTS. for some six months with an elegant and accom- phshed young ladi^ who naturally enough, imagined him her suitor, and who told her intimate friends not only that she expected him to propose, but that she had determined to accept him. He escorted her to parties and to theatres, he made himself at once her sunlight and her shadow, till one after- noon, by the merest accident, she ascertained, to her equal surprise and consternation, that her fancied suitor was a married man. To do him justice, he had never said he was not ; he had never alluded to the subject at all ; had, as he himself expressed it, drifted into a flirtation. Of course the self deluded woman hid her chagrin, and crushed her love, but at what cost of misery and tears, only Heaven and her- self know. Again, 1 have known a husband of the period, who was known to be a husband, but who was also a pro- nounced and inveterate flirt. He became intimate socially with a belle of the season, who flirted with him to his gay content ; it was an open game, and all MARRIED FLIRTS, 87 baggage was at the risk of the owner : but ere she was herself aware, the woman had flirted into love. Love for a married man — she realized her peril, but too late. "Why did she love him? curious fool be still: Is human love the growth of human will?" She did not commit herself, she was too proud, too pure, nor did he seek to avail himself of his advant- age, he was a gentleman, and indeed, to this day, he does not know the extent of his own victory — that was her secret, and mine as her confidant, but that belle is a wreck, a heart wreck, a ship stranded high and dry on the shoals of a misplaced but irresistible attachment. Ah ! therein lies the curse of these married flirtations, these intimacies of women with other women's husbands. There is absolutely no safety to one woman in the mere fact of a man be- longing to another i his being married does not ren- der him less fascinating, or less dangerous ; *nay, it renders him more so, more dangerous in the assured safety of his position, more danger in his knowl- 88 MARRIED FLIRTS. edg^e of woman. He is no flirting fool, no timid, bashful woer : he looks you in the face with those bright eyes, he lures you with his eloquent tongue, that has already uttered vows of love and life, long fidelity, to another, he charms you with his win- ning ways, which have already won a wife, but he is as charming, as entertaining, as fascinating as ever, as though there were no other woman on earth save you — and if you are susceptible to flattery, if 3^ou have unfathomed depths of fondness in your nature, if you are capable of admiring manhood, then I sa}^, beware, you are as likely to love him mar-ried as single ; you may not, probably will not, commit a crime, but you are on the verge of per- petuating a very great folly ; you may not risk your reputation, but you are staking your life's peace — Again, 1 say beware ; why sport with edged tools ; why carry a spark into a powder magazine — especi- ally when the major portion of the danger must shared by you as a woman. For be assured, if evil comes, MARRIED FLIRTS. 89 it will fall and crush you only — If sin grows out of folly, you, not he, will bear the curse. Society is unjust in this, as in all things, and the victim, IS the woman Chapter XXIII. THE FAST MAN. MOTHER and daughter — a fashionable mother and daughter — are strolling up the avenue ; they meet a brilliant woman elegantly clad. The two knew this third woman once, but they do not know her now — she is tine fmtnie comprise — a compromised woman. She has been talked about with Charley so and so — she has been imprudent, she is then no longer inno- cent — and mother and daughter would die at the stake rather than notice her. And this IS very meet and very right — even the woman who is cut dead on the promenade acknowl- edges this m her own heart. For the female reputa- tion is a delicate plant and needs the purest atmos- here. It dies at once m foul air. The mother and daughter pass on, inspecting and being inspected — bowing and smiling to the right THE FAST MAN. 9I and left — all at once they come to a halt ; mamma ex- tends her hand with empressment ; the daughter proffers her fair fingers with a charming blush and a pleased smile — they have met one of the favored men of their set; he is no other than this Charley so and so himself. He joins the two in their stroll, mamma is rejoiced and the daughter in her soul exults ; for their com- panion is a rich man ; he will marry some day, per- haps, who knows, he may marry her who sweeps the side-walk in her silks and velvet at his side. They enjoy the stroll and when they reach their home the splendid cultured home ; the ladies insist upon Charley entering its honored portals with them. Papa receives him cordially, the brothers and sisters greet him pleasantly. He is admitted into the very heart of home. And who is this Charley so and so? He is one of the fast men of the period ; he has darkened the lives, and rendered desperate the souls of a score of women in his time : he is utterly with- out scruple, or heart, or soul, or conscience ; he has 92 THE FAST MAN. faith in neither God nor man ; he drinks and swears, and gambles, and steals, and hes, and betrays : he never spared a woman j^et and never will — the poor creature who was scorned on the promenade by her own sex to-day, trusted in him and has cursed her folly ; she is only one of the many — how many will never be known till the last da3^ Yet he is welcomed by our parents ; he pays his address to our daughters and is wedded to them. Is this meet, and is this right? Does not this fast man of this species carry with him a pestilence as fatal to female purity as does his victim ? is it only the woman who brings with her the foul air ? Even when he marries, the same perverse partiality the same terrible injustice, is displayed in our social treatment of the fast men — for he is as fast when married as before. He desolates all homes into which he enters ; and yet society pronounces not his doom ; there seems to be no doom for such as him ; he but fulfills his destiny. Yet his own home must be sacred, all the while^ THE FAST MAN. 93 and if his outraged wife driven desperate by neglect, likewise steps astray ; ah ! then society pronounces its decision ; then for her it has a doom. In this respect the "man of the period" does indeed differ from the " woman of the period" — in this point> and perhaps in this point only, is there no analogy be- tween the sexes. Is this just — is this consistent with the highest prin- ciples of society itself; does not this need reform? I will not attempt to justify the woman in this, her dire calamity and engulfing dishonor, but I will ap- peal to society to know, if whilst it consigns her to the uttermost depths of shame and disgrace, if while it scouts her from even its outer portal, if it is not high time that he, the most to be dreaded enemy of society, should not likewise receive at its hands the most condign punishment ? As the most delicate flower is the first to blight and wither under the scorching rays of the sun, and the chill of the frosts so are the most gentle, generous and confiding women the easiest prey to the wiles of that curse and foul plot of society, the seducer. 94 THE FAST MAN. Just here, ladies, is an opportunity for you to vote. U vote and vote unanimously, that no father, brother or acquaintance shall ever introduce to you any man whose honor is stained ; vote to shut him out beyond the portals of society, and you will accomplish more for women, and for man himself, than by any other social revolution. Chapter XXIV. THE BETTING MAN. T,ET me now call your attention to three or four types of the men of the period which are speci- ally characteristic of the period itself. First, let me introduce you to the '^ speculative" man, not he of the Col. Sellers order, immortalized by Mark Twain and materialized by Raymond, but the equally familiar type, whose speculative mania is al- was manifested by a bet — in other words, let me make you acquainted with the '' betting man'' of the period. Now there have been " betting men" at all periods of the world's history, but the '' bettor" of to-day is the most comprehensive, systematic and thorough which the world has ever seen ; the most earnest and energetic, yet the least excitable. While the race is being won at Saratoga or Long Branch, while horse and rider dash and drive along at fever heat 96 THE BETTING MAN. under the fervid sun and amid a cloud of dust- — hun- dreds of miles away, in the shade of the New York pool rooms, sits the '^great American bettor,'' with his cigar in his mouth, and his pencil in his hand, buying his horses in the pool, as though he were buying his bale of goods. And while the country is agitated from the Penobscot to the Pacific with the whirl of a Presidential election, while issues of the utmost mag- nitude are being decided by the noiseless fall of mil- lions of ballots, while the fate of thousands hangs in the balance, and the very life of parties is at stake — in the very heart of this excitement, himself perfectly calm, with his hat on his head and a roll of bills in his hand, the " betting man" of the period, stakes his pile on candidates and majorities. It is a peculiar spectacle, so peculiar, that if we were not all so used to it, it would seem almost sublime. Chapter XXV. BUSINESS MEN. J^MERSON, when asked what was the spirit of the nineteenth century, replied, with a sneer, " the trading spirit.'' Now we must admit the truth of the statement, though we deny the justness of the sneer. We breathe an atmosphere of barter ; this age is an age of bargains. Now commerce itself, spite of Emerson and Mills, spite of transcendental philosophers and sentimental poets, is a humanizing element, and has a tendency to benefit, not to de- grade humanity. How it has benefitted these United States, history and our own personal experience at- test, it is business and the American man of business that has made America. Our business men are not mere buyers and sellers, mere producers, they have ideas, and they develop them ; they are discoverers, inventors, patentees, they are the Astors, Goodyears, 98 BUSINESS MEN. Stewarts, Vanderbilts, Harpers, they are the heroes, aye, the giants of trade ; they have an energy which, like hope, springs eternal in the breast, an enterprise which war could not divert, and which even the storms of a disputed election could not dismay ; they possess a foresight equal to the statesman, and a courage to the soldier. But, alas, there is a reverse side to our picture, and we cannot shut our eyes to it. Our petty trades- men are too often but petty knaves ; they do not deal, they simply swindle. The grocer has his false meas- ure, and his light weight ; the butcher has his tricks of trimming; the fruiter has his tricks of topping I the coal dealer has his short ton, and the milkman has his Croton water. And when we rise to larger transactions, although the commercial horizon wid- ens, alas, the moral aspect does not always im- prove ; the wholesale trader is more ambitious than the retail dealer, but he is not more honest ; he, too, often ignores alike morality and humanity, and acknowledges only interest. Under the capa- f BUSINESS MEN. 99 cious pretext of business necessity, or the custom of trade, he practices steadily, and energetically, every phase of commercial rascality ; he cheats his custom- ers himself, or he cheats them by proxy through the agencies of clerks, whom he compels to lie for his advancement. He cheats his government; he will pay for perjuries by the score, uttered in the ear of Custom House officials ; he will spend money freely for false entries, sham bills of lading, and other de- vices in the repertoire of smuggling. A New York Custom House official could tell of perjuries, will- fully, deliberately made, false oaths subscribed to, by men whose public character was supposed to be synonymous with truth. Or, styling themselves Christian philanthrophists, they grind the faces of the poor, paying employees starvation wages, meanwhile exacting from them the '* pound of flesh '' in the guise of the most exhausting labor, working them like dumb driven cattle, twelve and even fourteen hours a day. Take a palace car with me and permit yourself to lOO BUSINESS MEN. be whirled along to some factory town ; emerge from the luxurious softness of your Pullman, or your Wagner, enter the close air and dim light and in- cessant whirl of the factory building. See the thm- cheeked, weak-eyed, sharp-faced women, who though young in years, are old in misery ; women who have seen twenty summers, but who never knew one week's holidav ; girls who regard the sun as a something which shows them the way to their treadmill, and the moon as something which lights them back to their squalid homes; girls whose world is ** work- work- work while the cock is crowing aloof;" girls whose backs are benf^ but not with age, whose brows are wrinkled, but not with natural cares; whose. nerves are shattered, whose spirits are gone, whose hearts are broken in the everlasting work and the eternal monotony of factory life. Behold groups of little children, who have never had a chance to go to school ; armies of little children who have never owned a toy. Or stroll with me along Broadway, or any chief BUSINESS MEN. lOI avenue of trade. You have had your noon-day nap, and you feel refreshed, so just for contrast, step with me into one of these huge marts, where, scores upon scores of young girls are compelled to ** stand, stand, stand," from morn till noon, from noon till dewy eve. No rest for such as these, however weary. "Stand, stand, stand, till the brain begins to swim, Stand, stand, stand, till the eyes grow heavy and dim." The doctors tell us that standing is injurious to women ; true every woman knows herself how it pains her to stand ; but what is pain or what is health compared to trade. What if they sigh, as they do hourly; what if they suffer, as they do daily ; what it they die, as they do yearly, and according to medi- cal statistics, literally killed by standing. Are they not poor, and are they not paid for it ? Do not our largest dealers and Cliristian philanthrophists give women from three and as high as seven dollars a week for standing in their service eleven hours a day — and then these same pious souls, on bright Sab- bath mornings, join reverently in the hymn — " Stand up for Jesus." Chapter XXVI, THE PACK HORSE. T HAVE heard of the tortures of the martyrs, I have seen pictures of the crucified St. Peter, and the stoned St. Stephen. I have shuddered at the engravings of Auto de Fis, and quivered with nervous horror at the deliniated writhings of some agonized victim of the inquisition. But there is another, a self-constituted, not always Christian, yet most genuine and pitiable martyr and sufferer, to be seen in our city midst every day. He is called, " a man of business." You can tell him at once when you see him — he has a bent back and a wrinkled brow, and pale and shrunken cheek and a lack-lustre eye, he is bald years before his time, and seldom smiles ; he works harder and longer than the majority of men, and never takes a holiday. Yet he is not a galley slave, nor a State's prison convict, only a rick man ; he has not committed theft THE PACK HORSE, lOJ nor murder, he is only actively engaged in business ; he is a family man, too, but his family do not know him, and very naturally, for they rarely ever see him. They have learned to look upon him, as he seems to look upon himself, as an animal, designed to carry gold, and who fulfills his destiny. He carried a hundred thousand a few years, the burden bowed his back a little ; then he had to carry five hun- dred thousand — this burden bowed his back a good deal more ; now he bears millions, and his poor old back is nearly broken. Pretty soon the poor old man, poor with his millions, poor in all that makes men rich — the poor, loveless husband, the poor, child- less father will die ; die clinging to his golden burden to the last, die without having known, perhaps, one genuine summer day, in all the winters of his seventy years ; and then, ere the breath is out of his body, and while his obituaries are being published in the papers, the poor old "pack horse'' will be virtually for- gotten by all — save his heirs — who will quarrel over his corpse for his gold, and disgrace his memory as they spend his money. Chapter XXVII. BROKERS. ^UT, perhaps, of all modern ninetenth century busi- ness, the most thoroughly selfish is that shown in that elegant gambling euphoniously called "specu- tion." The man who plays cards for a few dollars is denominated a ^'gambler," and laws are enacted to punish him, but the man who plays " stocks " for the hard-earned fortunes of other people, is denominated a ''broker," and laws are enacted to protect him. The man who cajoles a stranger at keno or plucks him at faro, is looked upon with aversion, but the man who cajoles his best friend into a ruinous career or plucks his widow and orphan of their last dollars in a pool, is looked upon with adoration. •' Strange such a difference there should be, 'Twixt tweedle-dum and tweedle-dee." This great stock and bond bandit, simply sits in his down-town office, and like a spider, weaves his BROKER. 105 web for the destruction of the golden flies, that buzz confidingly about him, playing "ducks and drakes" with the hard-earned fortunes of other people. He invents lies and sends them to the newspapers ; he coins false reports and entrusts them to the tele- graph, and lo ! in a few years he becomes a twenty, or a fifty, or a hundred millionare, and all the world pays court to him, hangs upon his slightest look, cherishes his slightest smile. And if out of their ill- gotten millions, these vultures, in a fit of remorse, or from policy, or hypocrisy, give a few spare hundred thousand to a university or a church, or a school, lo ! the whole world cries '' hail," off goes the public cap, leaders are written on their generosity (?) meetings are called to take cognizance of their " charity,'' and ministers preach sermons on their "piety." And when, after a long life of chicanery and rascality and selfishness, the end comes, when these great " stock and bond bandits'' are gathered to their fathers, lo I the world would fain convince itself that these dead misers were devoted Chris- io6 BROKER. tians^ and so though they have lived like a " Sir Giles Overreach," and undone widows and wronged orphans, we are told " they fall asleep in Jesus, like a St. Stephen," and though even in their last will and testament they have taken no heed of the poor brother whom they have seen, we are told they are " fully prepared to meet their God," whom they have not seen. Ah ! what a ghastly mockery of all that is worth living for, and dying for, is this, and yet such mockeries are perpetrated every day. Chapter XXVIIL THE POLITICIAN. ^ND now for the man one meet every day of the week and every hour of the day ; the ^'patriot" of the period, the politician, the same thing of course. Ah! Dr. Johnston was in the wrong, when he growled out his celebrated dictum ; that "patriotism is the last refu2"e of a scoundrel," it is not the last, it is the very first. In these free and enlightened States of America, where one man is as good as another and a great deal better ; a scoundrel takes to politics as naturally as a man takes to a woman, or a woman to a new bonnet; when a fellow has nothing else to do, he takes to doing the community, and when a fellow has nothing else to save, he takes to saving the country. He commences saving it by ballot-box stuffing and repeating, voting early and voting often and attend- ing the primaries. I08 THE POLITICIAN. Having served his native land in this arduous field awhile, he becomes, in course of time, an Alderman, . then he makes the most of every fat job that is brought before him, and keeps his big fingers in the " public pie " till he secures the plums. He trades in his influence just as he trades in his rum or butter, and makes a good thing out of both ; he figures largely in " street openings" and " public improvements," two pet names of his for any fat jobs that " improve" his own pecuniary prospects or " open " for him any avenue of gain. As years roll on he waxes fat and gross, plethoric in person and purse. Still "saving" his country — God bless his patriotic heart, how he does love his coun- try to be sure ! how he labors in its service and what pay he exacts for his devotion — is not the laborer worthy of his hire? He becomes a member of a ring of a close corporation which controls millions of the public moneys and he takes his pay for controlling it; what more natural ? is it not written in Holy Writ ** he that provideth not for his own family is worse THE POLITICIAN. IO9 than an infidel." His wife now displays her dia- monds, his daughters now wear imported dresses and his sons now keep their trotters and their — well — the country can stand it ; is it not at the mercy of the rings. Finally wearied of saving his country in mere- ly local politics he takes a wider field of operation and is sent to the Capitol as *'State Senator ," here he finds lobbying reduced to an exact science and bribery elevated into a fine art ; he now masters the both and buys votes and sells them admirably ; he believes devoutly with Sir Robert Walpole, that •* every man has his price," and he has his, or rather he has his scale of prices; he charges so much for this sort of a bill, and so much more for that sort of a bill. A rural measure he does not care so much about : for a city ordinance he has more anxiety ; but for all R. R. bills and big State jobs of that kind, he asks a tremenduous tariff; he finds men all around him paying four dollars a day board bill out of a stipend of a few dollars a week, and still saving moriey enough to buy farms, or camels hair shawls or to wear no THE POLITICIAN. diamond pins and play draw poker ; so he out Herods Herod and makes his fortune out of five thousand a year in a single session. Still *' saving '' his country, this patriot of ours is elected to Congress bv an " appreciative and grateful" constituency — several of the most important members of whom he carries in his pantaloon's pocket; he discovers Washington to be, not only the city of magnificent distances, but the city of magnificent jobs; the air is full ot Pacific R. R. grants, and hundred million dollar subsidies, and into the very thick of these our disinterested patriot rushes pell mell, and comes out with gold and United States bonds stick- ing to him closer than a brother. He has now a mag- nificent house in W. street, entertains cabinet ministers and their wives, is well received at the White House; is steeped in pollution to the very lips and presents to the world the amazing yet familiar spectacle of a coarse, vulgar, venal yet influential statesman, and corrupt yet conspicuous patriot. Yet, after all, he is but one phase of the many sided '* American country saver," THE POLITICIAN, III There, for example, is the "talking patriot;'' the spouter, the blower ; this man beats any woman in this line ; talk as she will she can never talk like him ; he is a concentrated gas works ; only his gas gives no light , he is always ready to talk for his country and he is never ready to do anything else. Then there is the " writing patriot," the letter in- ditmg, the newspaper patriot ; to him the country is a big sheet of paper, on which, he is constantly scrib- bling his own name ; nothing delights him like this seeing himself in print; he believes in saving his country by spreading its printer's ink. And lastly there is the " hack politician.," who is always m harness ; the man who lives for and by the party ; the man who has no idea of a broad liberal patriotism, but whose horizon is bounded by the resolutions of his caucus ; the man, who if he was a Democrat, would not repeat the Lord's prayer had it been uttered originally by a Republican ; or who if Republican would pay no heed to the ten command- ments had Moses been a Democrat. 112 THE POLITICIAN. Such be thy gods, oh Israel ! let us trust that long ere the next Centennial these false political pseudo patriotic types may be extinct ; extinct as the Ich- thyosaurus or the mastodon of the old world ; only unlike these ancient monsters may these modern politicians leave not a trace behind. Chapter XXIX. THE MAN OF BRASS. ^ERHAPS the most characteristic type of the period is the *' man of brass." This is a brazen age, it has been called the gilded age, and with a certain share of truth, but there is more brass than gilt about it, after all, or rather it is gilded with brass. We, of the nineteenth century, have a penchant for brass, it is a shining metal and sounding ; there is a ring about it. Having passed through the stages of self-creation, and self-preservation, and having made considerable progress in the stages ot self-improve- ment, it now seems as if we had entered upon the stage of self-assertion. Having basked in the primi- tive purity of our age of gold, having struggled through the material and political difficulties which 114 THE MEN OF BRASS. have characterized our age of iron, it now seems as if we were being confronted by an age of brass. Never since the world w^as created, could brass ac- complish as much as now. In art, in science, in lit- erature, in politics, in society, in business, in specula- tion, and in religion, we feel the influence of brass. It is more than experience, it is more than study, it is more than talent, it is more than conscience — why prate about the definition of genius, brass is the genius. Time was when success was conscientiously studied and intelligently sought for. Time has been when men devoted laborious days and sleepless nights arming for the battle of life ; but now they rush into the fray with no weapon save brass, and it suffices. A man 'comes fresh from the country, from driving a stage-coach, or planting potatoes, or feed- ing cattle, and he rushes right into the very heart of the financial centres of the world, and seizes a rail- road or a bank, and scoups up Wall street and the Stock Exchange, drives a four-in-hand of horses and of judges, controls fleets of steamboats, and flocks oi THE MEN OF BRASS. 1 15 lawyers, and convulses the world with a " Black Friday." LITERARY MAN OF BRASS. Look at the " literary man of brass," the clap-trap orator, the plagarizing orator, who without a mo- mentary hesitation, or a momentary blush, appro- priates Shakspeare or alters Byron, who puts good French into bad English, but never says a word to his English audiences about the French authorities, the ghoul who robs alike the living and the dead. SOCIAL MAN OF BRASS. See our " social man of brass ;" he has no substantial influence, he lacks aUke education and refinement, he is from head to foot, in essence as in presence, a vul- garian, but take your hat off, for every one else bows before him — he is a leader by the right of brass. He has asserted himself, therefore the world pros- trates itself. n6 THE MEN OF BRASS. BRAZilN MINISTER OF GOD. The man who thinks to pierce the souls of men and gain the ear of Heaven with a brazen trumpet. See how the clerical charlatan, the consecrated mounte- bank turns the pulpit into a Punch and Judy show ; how he makes you laugh with his comedy or makes you cry with his tragedy ; how he tickles your ears but never by any possibility touches your conscience ; how he cracks jokes or tell stories, regardless alike of the thunders of Mount Sanai, or the still small voice ; how he twists language into curious shape to attract your attention, not to the Christ but to the clergyman; how in the highest calling of humanity — the service of the Divinity — he resorts to the lowest arts of the demagogue. How he trifles with Holy Writ as though it were Joe Miller ? How unmistakably he prefers his own ser- mons to the sermon on the Mount, and on what terms of blasphemous familiarity does he place his infinitis- mal self with the Divinity. Ah ! how true it is that " fools rush in where angels fear to tread ;" but let us THE MEN OF BRASS. II7 never forget that even in this world, as most assuredly in the next, there are those who can and do discrim- inate between the false and the true, between the genuine metal and the mere amalgam ; between the pure gold and the sounding brass and tinkling symbal. * -Jf * * -5^ « 4f -x- And every day these shams, these mockeries are surely but steadily sapping the public and social life, polluting the fountains of public morality, aye, and if they are permitted to continue will one day terminate our national existence ; I speak advisedly, they will kill the nation ; I am not an alarmist, but just here I would ask my readers with all the solemnity such a question demands. Are we Americans not losing ; have we not lost that nice sense of personal, mercan- tile and national honor which was the special charac- teristic and strength of our country in the days of that spotless patriot George Washington and that stainless merchant John Hancock ? Have we not men in our local midst who have made, who are known to have made their fortunes by 8 THE MEN OF BRASS. their complicity in the infamous schemes of New- York rings — and are not these men courted and caressed^ Have we not men belonging to our local clubs who should by right belong to our local jails? Have we not men holding places in our best society, who in a just sense of their deserts should only hold places in the chain gang ? Have we not swindlers of savings banks, who shake hands on equal terms with high- toned bankers? Have we not defaulters with trust funds who asso- ciate with the friends of the very men and women with whose trusts they have defaulted ? Have we not rogues among us whose social popu- larity seems to have no limit and yet who have only escaped States prison by pleading the "statute of limi- tation?" And in the very Capitol of the nation have we not law makers who are law breakers ; have we not rulers who transgress every rule of God and man? Have we not officials who are bribe-takers and public men who are public robbers? Do not sus- THE MEN OF BRASS. II9 pected theives surround the throne? Does not the suspicion of fraud at this very moment taint the very throne itself? I pause for a reply — would to heaven I could hear from the heart and lips of my readers an indignant " no !*' But, alas ! you cannot hurl my question in my teeth, you cannot throw your defiance in my face — the newspapers of the day, the telegraph, the public correspondent, the private letter, each man and each woman's personal knowledge and experience confront you and restrain you ; not only you, but me, for 1 am an American woman and I love my country, but I love it too well to flatter it or to lie to it. The time has come when this country needs more than any- thing else the truth. This great American Republic will never fall in war, battle has but drawn us closer ; this great Republic will never fall in political strife — strain has but made us stronger ; but history repeats itself, and all history shows that national immorality precedes national destruction ; the story of a world's wickedness followed by a world's deluge is a symbol 120 THE MEN OF BRASS. and a parable. God has made his commandments for the new world as for the old, and just as he has punished their violation in the old, so will he avenge them in the new. In all ages the same moral and immoral causes will produce the same result. The Grecian Republic ceased to e?vist when the virtues of the Greeks ceased to exist, save in story. The Roman Republic fell to pieces only when the Roman citizens fell from the honor of their forefathers and were steeped to the lips in corruption. And America, free America, if it mistake license for liberty and gives itself over to immorality it will share the fate of the nations whose evil example it has followed. " 111 fares that land to gathering woes a prey When wealth accumulates and men decay.'* Chapter XXX. CARELESS HUSBANDS. ^UT let US now pay our respects to the avowedly and unmistakably married portion of the male community. Let me here introduce to you one type of the husband of the period, the "careless husband,'' let us fancy that we have been invited to the wedding, that we have heard the irrevocable words uttered, and that the bride of the period is walking from the altar with the man of her choice. Now, however frivolous the girl may have been as a belle, rest as- sured she is somewhat sobered as a bride ; marriage IS a sacrament to every woman, and although she may not really love the man she has married, rest as- sured she sincerely desires and earnestly resolves, at firsts that his life with her shall be happier than it could possibly have been without her ; to say nothing of her instinct, it is her interest ; she is so much more 122 CARELESS HUSBANDS. dependent upon him than he is upon her ; as a mere matter of policy she will strive to please him — but he is careless and selfish — most men are as society is, they could scarcely be otherwise ; when the hiatus of the honeymoon is passed, when the bridal trip has ended, he sinks down into the old ruts of his habits and wraps the elegant robes of his selfishness about him; he does not weary of his wife, perhaps, and being a gentleman he does not ill treat her, he simply ignores her ; he goes his separate ways, and throwing him- self into life leaves her to her loneliness ; she endures the empty house called by a euphonious mockery '' a home ;" she looks out of the windows alone ; she plays her piano to herself; she sits and thinks about herself and him, and wonders where he is and longs for him — then learns to do without him and finally learns to imitate him ; he has his separate world apart from her ; she makes a separate world apart from him and thus the united pair lead disunited lives ; he has his separate estabUshment, his servants, who know more of their master's business than does their mistress ; CARELESS HUSBANDS. I23 he has his separate horses and carriages which he drives himself but rarely with his wife beside him ; he has also his separate suite of rooms, very often his wife residing in the country while he resides in town, even when they sleep beneath the same roof they sleep apart; they always breakfast apart and rarely ever dine together ; he has his club dinners, his di- rector's dmners and his judge's dinners, to say nothing of the many named and nameless suppers. All this is bad and bad enough but alas ! thus " bad begins and worse remains behind ;" he has also his separate '^ love " and heaven help her, she in time learns to imitate him in this also — having lived apart they love apart ; may heaven have mercy upon her for her world will show no mercy ; in time he will have his eyes open to her as she has long, long since had her eyes opened to him ; pretty soon he will dis- cover all, then there will be a scandal, a tragedy per- haps, and then a loud outcry about a '-husband's in- jured honor,'' and another text for another tirade against the *' wife of the period," 124 CARELESS HUSBANDS. Yet this ruined wife ; this blasted home of the period, what is it but the legitimate results of the carelessness of the husband of the period. And this carelessness IS in itself, when thoughtfully considered, as unman- like as it is criminal. For men when they are at their best, when they are putting their manhood to the test and stakingallon what they consider "worth the hazard '' are never careless. In science, in art, in poetry, in philosophy, in material life, in all that can dignify the body, delight the mind and elevate the soul, man, earnest man has ever been found, the sage the author, the inventor and the hero. Nor is the man of period one whit inferior to the man of the past, regard what man nmeteenth century man has accom- plished — he surrenders all his will, brain and devotion to what he regards ''his world," and see what mag- nificent results follow his self devotion. ***** * * * It is piercing cold the wind howls through the rigging all night and the night is six months long ; CARELESS HUSBANDS. 125 there is no water, it is all ice ; the very ship is frozen, it is a world without a sun; it is the region of the pole ; but man — earnest man — is here, freezing in the cause of science. It is hot, the sun pours down its vertical rays, which even the lion dreads and flees from to his jungle, but man, earnest man is here toiling in the cause of civilization. It is a far-off isle in the Pacific, beautiful as the Garden of Eden, but deadly as the Upas tree. The spicy breezes blow softly and every prospect pleases, but the smiling land and the placid waters are accurst — they are the haunts of the monster and the canni- bal, yet man, the missionary, is here dying in the cause of Christianity. It is a desolate tract, separating the mighty East from the mighty West, a desert of a tract full of vast valleys and vaster mountains, but neither can dis- hearten man, earnest man — he is here, tunneling the mountains, bridging the chasms, uniting the west to east, marrying them in eternal bonds of steam and electricity. 126 CARELESS HUSBANDS. It is midnight, and the woman sleeps, dreaming o^ pleasures of the morrow. But the man is pouring over the midnight lamp in his solitary chamber. He is perchance a poet, " And through long days of labor And nights devoid of ease. He hears in his soul the music Of wonderful melodies." Or he is a Bulwer, and is evolving a ** Zavoni," or he is a Darwin, or a Spencer, or a Stuart Mills. Or perchance he is a Gladstone, or a Bismarck, or a Stanton, or a Seward. While the nation sleeps he is thinking for the nation. He is pondering over the problem whose solution will save a race, or deciding a question whose answer will be impressed on his- tory forever. Or his country is in peril, and looks to him in its extremity — his native land lies bleeding, and calls aloud to him for help ; on the instant the man is transformed into the soldier, and the soldier is glori- fied into the hero ; he heeds not danger, he heeds not pain, and never thinks of death ; he seizes his CARELESS HUSBANDS. 12/ * sword and his standard and rushes into the fray — fights like mad Anthony Wayne, or falls like Warren. And in life, as in death, these men, these patriots, warriors, merchants, missionaries, authors, invent- ors, discoverers, are in earnest. In earnest — in these two words lies all the secret, in these two brief words IS hidden all the mystery of their success. Oh ! what husbands there would be in this world of ours, if husbands were in earnest in home happi- ness and perfections. Oh ! wh^t fathers we would have, what brothers and what lovers ; and what happy homes there would be on this earth of ours \\ men were only as earnest seekers after domestic as material prosperity. Oh ! would to Heaven men were half as earnest and devoted to their world of home as they are to that " home of theirs " they call the world. But Ah ! gentlemen, I know that you are smiling inwardly, for have I not, woman-like, forgotten my text, which was not the glories, but the follies of 128 CARELESS HUSBANDS. your sex, did I not warn you that I had come to chant your miserere, and have I not really been sing- ing your laudamus I Nay, nay, I am keeping faith, after all, for did I not tell you I appreciated your excellencies, and I have but shown my apprecia- tion. Chapter XXXI. MARRIED TYRANTS. ^UT let me now return to the less congenial but more essential aspect of my theme, and let me hold my truthful mirror before orle of the most repulsive types which disgrace this male humanity of yours, this humanity at once so bright, and yet so low. Let me show you as he is, the horrid image of the '^ married tyrant.'* The married tyrant, how shall I describe him, what words have 1, a woman, to pillory such a man. The common idea of the married tyrant is as coarse as it is simple ; he is a foul-mouthed brute, he curses his wife and beats her, he makes the air blue and her e^xs black. Now there is such a type as this ; shame be it such brutes as this abound at home and abroad, not only in low life, but in so-called high, that lords and 130 MARRIED TYRANTS. gentlemen — Heaven save the mark — physically mal- treat their wives, and curse and kick them, is not only a social mystery, but a disgraceful fact. A fact revealed every now and then in our English and American courts of justice, a fact which makes us sneer at our civilization and doubt our Christianity. But the worst tyrants are not of this description ; they do not break the head, but the spirit ; they do not bruise the body, but the heart. This sort of a tyrant is almost always a *' most respectable man,'' he pays his just debts and his church dues; he is a model in the world at large, but in the world at home, what is he ? Perhaps jealous ; in this case his Christian wife has less freedom than a Turkish slave. JEALOUS TYRANTS. There is no woman who needs more sympathy than the married slave of a jealous despot, and these despots are as numerous in America as in Turkey ; they go to church quite as often as they MARRIED TYRANTS. I3I go to mosque ; the one employs Eunichs, the other employs spies ; the one resorts to the cord, the sack, and the Bospherous, the other util-izes a foul sus- picion, a slander, or some other torture of civilized life. But the result to the female victim is the same — she is watched and she is spied, her looks are seen only through the mists of passion and prejudice, her trifles, light as air, are to his fancy, hoary with guilt, all the joy is banished from her life, and though in- nocent as a lamb, she is immolated on the altar of his doubt. Talk of the small suspicions of a jealous woman, what are they to the infinitismal littleness and mean cruelties of a jealous man. A woman has always this excuse for her jealousy, she loves the man she watches, she adores the creature she torments, and her jealousy is but an adjunct of her passion. But a man is ofte-n jealous of a woman for whom he does not care a whit, he torments a crea- ture for whom he does not pretend any fondness ; he makes a martyr of her through his selfishness; she is his, just as a dog is his, or a horse is his, and 132 MARRIED TYRANTS. not another's, she belongs to him and not to some other man, and is his property ; she must endure his wbi'ms, she must be subject to his caprices, she must be the submissive slave to his irresponsible whims — he meanwhile, lord of creation that he is ; be free as air, free to smile upon and be smiled upon by any other woman, while she, this nineteenth century Christian slave, must hide her face and hide her heart, re- strain alike her body and her spirits — Ah ! Byron wrote and a world has read, "a prisoner of Chillon,'' but there are thousands of mute, meek-eyed, broken- hearted prisoners, who need a Byron's eloquence in their case. Would that I had the gift of tongue, that from the depth of an indignant heart, I could paint the agonies endured by these wedded wives of jealous tyrants, then would the world read and shudder. Ah ! it is well as Dickens says, '' there is another world, a world that sets this right." MARRIED TYRANTS. 1 33 PHILOSOPHIC TYRANT. Or he may be of a different type ; perhaps his selfishness ma}^ exhibit itself in another phase — he is a philosopher foresooth, a philosopher who imag- ines his way to the stars impeded by a petticoat. Such a man has long ago discovered that nat.ire abhors a vacuum, so to keep the universe from being empty, he fills it with himself. He sees himself in the sun, moon, and stars, he finds himself in the secondary and tertiary strata, he looks at himself in history, aye, he even insinuates himself into the- ology, or studies himself and calls himself " science and art." And thus absorbed wholly in self-contem- plation, he ignores wholly the wife, the poor, patient little woman whom he married years ago, and wh or, when a wife in New York can step up to the tele- phone and quietly ask her husband in Paris for ''a new bonnet." So doubtless some fine day, naUire will take it into her head to outdo her rival science and will, after any amount of crowing, give to the world a " per- fect man." What a glorious day that will be — would that I were a combination of Homer, and Byron, and Tupper, and Darwin, that I might adequately des- cribe this superb creation, this perfection of his spe- cies, this *' coming man." But I see a smile rippling over the faces of my readers, and I understand its meaning. You wonder, when this " perfection" of his species, seeks to marry what earthly woman he will find worthy to marry him — for of course you argue, the ^' ideal woer" must woe the ''ideal mistress," the "perfect husband'' must win a "perfect wife" — and you are right, and herein lies the whole pith of the discourse— rest easy on this point, when he is the rule, she will not be the exception. THE COMING MAN. I 55 Woman is but reflected man, he is the mirror in which she sees herself, the image may be somewhat modified, distorted if you will, by the medium of sex but it is the reflected image after all, as — Sunshine broken in the rill Though turned aside is sunshine still. It is to be pleasing in his eyes that she is wise or foolish, it is her nature to desire him and to do and be what she interprets he desires. Her virtues are to charm his soul, her very vices are to bewitch his senses, she is ever3^thing for him, she is all things for the man she loves. So when man is perfect, woman will reflect his perfection. When men no longer de- ceive, woman will be no longer false. When man no longer dyes his mustache, woman will no longer paint her cheeks. When he ceases to prefer limbs to brains woman will cease to pad. When he prefers the mind to the bod}^, women will cultivate the mind. When man is wholly honest, woman will be wholly true. When this ideal lover is ready to become a bridegroom, my word for it, he will find an ideal 156 THE COMING MAN. woman ready to be his bride — demand will create a supply in morals as in merchandise. Heaven never sends a soul into this world but it sends some other soul to be its mate, and when the ^* Adam" of faultless man is born, about that time will be created the '' Eve'* of perfect woman. THE END. DE^BY-fBE(§iFKE^^'-fPUBIiIC?IiFI0NP. THE TELEGRAPH IN AMERICA, AND IN MEMORIAM SAMUEL F. B. MORSE and WILLIAM ORTON. By JAMES D. REID. Royal Octavo. 900 pp. 16 Portraits on Steel. Numerous Engravings on Wood. Cloth, $6.00. JOHN HABBERTON'S LAST AND BEST BOOK, "SOME FOLKS.'' I vol. 8vo, 500 pp. Handsomely Illustrated. Cloth, $2,.oo. HOW WE RAISED o xj i=L IB ^^ IB ^sr. By JEROME WALKER, M.D. Physician to Sheltering Arms Hospital, Brooklyn, N. Y. Square i2mo, 200pp. Cloth, ^i.oo. RAUDOM CASTS, OR ODDS AND ENDS FROM AN ANGLER'S NOTE BOOK. By E. M. E. i2mo, 175 pp. 50 cents. A WOMAN'S THOUGHTS By MRS. HUGH L. BRINKLEY. l2mo, 156 pp. 50 cents. Any volume in the above list forwarded, postage paid, to any address on receipt of the price . DERBY BROTHERS, Publishers, NEW^ YORK. M'M: J€SM>.j:^ ; mi^^ i#. >33.:s xyyr: 2f '^fr_^^' :^,-^^^Sii^:-^^"^:»^ ^55" ^^3^ ^?::s-«i3^> a:2^?-jQ^ s Ik ~ ^iSI^WW^^I^ fi Sl^ '-^-< Rs^ d»>>:4^^^^> "- fs^S 3 ^1 'i z:3^& ^ 3 L ^ a ii?.--j 3 g:,;:3K 7^ 1 W p3i>-.^a^a^aj>^ ^. ^irv)i)5; a^.i^i r_ h :ip i^H gc^ . "^^'^^^%^S<"^'^--'4r^^'' ' p > -^'i ^«SM^^ r< ?y ^ ^