Rensselaer Republican, Volume 24, Number 5, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 1 October 1891 — GETTING INTO SOCIETY. [ARTICLE]

GETTING INTO SOCIETY.

1 How Some Americana Try the Game in London. 1 London letter In Boston Herald. It is‘an American’s privilege to flaunt at aristocracy and to love lords. There used to be a notion that only an Englishman dearly loved a lord, but it is high time to overhaul that ancient superstition and arrange it up to date. Who that lives in London can doubt the fascination of titles when he sees hundreds of Americans year'ly devoting their time, their treasure and theirpeace of mind to the ! engaging pursuit of nobility hunting? , Few of-you at home realize the rate o." annual increase in the numbers of o.ir countrymen and women arriving herein the season for the conquest of society. But every year the numi bers grow. It cannot be said that the numbers of conquests grow 7 in »proportion to the numbers of arrival from over-sei. In truth, there are every year more disappointments and more aching hearts. The Americans who come to London for the delectable purpose of “getting into society” are often as much out of their reckoning as are the tourists whom I have already de.>cribed. They think the game much ‘easier than it is. Many of them retire in utter discomfiture at the end of their first season; some try it a second year, and even athird, if their i purses and their, assurance hold out; but the end. in the majority of cases, j is defeat. There are two kinds of Americans who come to London to “get into soAjety. ’ One has some kind of social . standing at home, the other has not. As far as London is concerned, the ; first has but little advantage over the second. Some pretty stories could be told? if there wore no feelings to wound, of estimable ladies who rule their set in New York, Boston. Chicago, St. Louis,-Kahtmazoo, - ! or Five Pines Crossing—autocrats at home—who have discovered in London that they arc only items in the multitudeand that nobody here cares a jot for the glory they have won in the country of their nativity. They usually begin- by explaining • themselves. This is a fatal | error. London society asks no explanation from man or woman. It likes you or it likes you not. If you explain the act implies some doubt on yoiir own part and some acute self-consciousness. You have yet to learn that in London no one explains his social qualifications, To do so would be to condescend basely. If society does not know one’s qualifications the loss is society’s. Do you expect a duke to explain that he is a •duke: to tell how many guests he entertains at dinner and to declare that he is descended from the first settlers? Some of the Americans work into the wrong sets and then congratulate themselves that they are in society. Some of them, to be sure, never discover their error, so little discrimination have they. The • ‘smart set’’ is not “society, ” sDortLjpg.Jords are not, society, neither do Lprima.donue, celebrated- actors, advertising agents, nor the enchanting habitues of Bohemia constitute “society'' —that is to say the society upon which our American friends center their hopes. Much, you see, depends upon the definition you give to the term “society.” Our corapotriots have a vague nolion of what they want, but their I plans for fulfilling their desires are equally vague. One thing they are sure to do —they attempt to secure a presentation at court. Many of them succed in getting thus far in the i rain bi tic us pro j ects.Jitis not so difficult for an American tb get presented if she goes to work in the right way. In fact the Americans have rather overdone the business, so that a presentation is a cheap distinction. At the same time it usually turns the beads of the worthy persons who Succeed in getting into the Queen’s drawing room. They are so sure the way is clear for them straight to the very heart of society that they put on insufferable airs after the tedious and unsatisfactory ceremony of presentation. They have moved the powers of the earth, if not heaven and earth themselves, to get presented. If the Minister Plenipotentiary happens to come from their town so much the better. They know him or can easily procure an introduction suitable to their purpose. Then they have court costumes niade, take lessons in court deportment, find when the eventful day comes they swell with proper pride. It is diverting to witness the elation with which an American prepares for these aristocratic functions, it is diverting to watch an American's distress When it is borne in upon him-—or her—that the fact of having been “presented at court” does not put the social peg a hole higher. - . , ' . "Being * ‘presented” is of nd use to the American aspirant for social honors in London. Having been presented, you are supposed to be qualified for an invitation to a state ball or a state concert, but you never get the invitation. For the rest of your life you must rest with more or less serenity upon your qualification. Nobody cares whether you have been presented; nobody is the wiser save your own townsmen, for whom you have"carefully provided a newspaper, paragraph. The chances— «rd' that vou will never the inside of the Buckingham palace again. In brief, then, the presentation at the Queen's drawing room or the Prince 8- levee i goes for nothing. Some Americans besiege the “Marlborough House set,” and if they have money and other credeu-

tials. such as “sueartness” and beauty, they may gain an entrance. Then their ecstacy is unrestrained. They believe that they are in the best society, whereas they are not only several removes from it, but they have imperiled their chances of getting into it by the very fact of their association—more or less remote —with the Marlborough House lot. The “best society” is by no means on terms of intimacy with the Marl borough House set, it is, indeed, inclined to turn its back upon those who enjoy the Prince’s favor. Pushing will not do in London. You cannot force your social way to any good purpose. “Time;” cries some eager and democratic critic-in the United States, “but you can buy it.” This sally is sure to be greeted with a laughing chorus as the crowd remembers the stories they have been told of impecunious ladies of rank furnishing introductions and chaperon age in return for something dowm. Manj- of the stories are true, no doubt, and the laughter that greets them has merit in it: “A fig for aristocrats who can be purchased!”cries the staunch republican. Very good. But how many figs for the republican who purchases the aristocrat’s good offices? Is the one more worthy of respect than the other?

In “society,” no less than in pastoral circles, it makes all the difference as to whose ox is gored. The average American abroad resists the blandishments of titled acquaintance with-asdittle success as his jßritish cousin. He bottles up his criticism of monarchies until he shall return home to secure the votes for himself or for his "party, although when he comes to England again he hopes that no one here has heard of his red hot republican tirade. He will -run across town for the privilege of shaking hands with a lord, and not infrequently with a lord who is “cut” by his own countrymen. It is difficult fdr our American angling for social honors to understand how anybody can ‘‘cut” a lord. The most common mistake that Americans make in London is to imagine that the greetings extended to them during the season are passports into the charmed realm of society. As a matter of fact the conventional courtesies of the season go for nothing iu that respect. London hostesses keep what is practically known as open house during the months of May, June and July, and all sorts of people gain admittance who have really no business there. If you know any one who knows the hostess, and who is sure to get a card, you can generally secure an invitation for yourself, if you care for that way of doing things; but it is idle to imagine that such an invitation will do any good to the recipient

What happens in the season is no criterion of what will happen out of it. You may even be welcomed as a novelty, and then have to go the way of all phenomena. It is what happehs out of season rather than in it jhat tests your case. The -season is a kind of jubilee time, when every body sees everybody else -exept their friends. The reputation—or is notoriety the better word?—acquired by some of our countrywomen svho have come to London, establishing themselves here in a large w r ay and entertaining sorts of titled folks and celebrities, from therPrince of Wales to a liofsey" baronet, or the author of the latest comic songs, seems to increase the farther it gets from- London. These good people do not create much of a ripple in the social waters here. “Society” regards them as a curious kind offish, and rates them at their proper value. It is pretty clearly understood that the am bit ion of these dear creatures’ lives is to cut a figure, is to have notabilities at their houses, and to get the Prince when when they want nim. Well, notabilities go to be sure, but they go as they went to Olvmpia when Barnum was there, or to the exhibition grounds at Earl’s Court during the brief reign of Buffalo Bill. Even notabilities must have diversion, and it is sometimes comforting for them to know that their American hostesses san afford the elaborate entertainments they give, which is not always the case with the British. But as for being “social powers,” as for “presiding over salons,” as remote newspapers represent them—Well, it is all news to the Londoners. There is a queer kind of American bird that comes to London in the season to twitter on the social tree. It has just enough money to keep it a few weeks; it lives in the most modest of nests, at a highly respectable address; and what with being asked to breakfasts, luncheons and dinners it manages the business in a very economical way. It spends its small life in a continual twitter, and it goes home with enough gossip to last it through the winter, adorned, of course, with amazing tales calculated to duly astonish and amaze the stay-at-homes in America. Many of these queer birds migrate to London in the season and make themselves desperately uncomfortable in their effort to keep up appearances. But it must be said that they keep up appearances with remarkable skill, with, indeed, an amount of persistence and ingenuity which would serve well in some purpose more worthy of human endeavor than dangling on the outskirts of titled society. For it THS written that Americans love titles. When they are at home they will probably scout this assertion, but when they are in London how many of them pursue astonishing extremes in order to gratify their social longings. I have known some of them, highly estima-

ble persons, accomplished, wealthy, and in other respects ration® al, to be made unhappy by absolute indifference to their positibq, at home. To be the arbiter of sociaS destiny on the Back Bay, in FiftlM avenue, or anywhere else you chooseß and then to have it calmly and re® lentlessly revealed to you that yo« are but an atom in this vast social! world of London is disheartening-® is it not? -fl Of course some intelligent critifl will say: “All this means that it isl impossible for an American to entefl the best society in London. Whafl nonsense!” . S Yes, it is nonsense to say anything! of the kind. But the intelligent critic! is sure to say it; ’tis a way he has of! jumping at conclusions. If he had! waited a moment he would have been I told that there are Americans in I London, not a few, who move in what I society they choose, but that they! live their lives without ostentation, I in spite of their wealth or lack of it; I and they live as Americans, yielding I nothing in- allegiance to their own I country, but respecting the people I and the institutions of the country in I which they happen, for the time be- 1 ing, to reside. They are A.mericans I in fact, and not in name only; but, I above all, they are welcomed fori what they are as individuals. Nationality, wealth and the rest obi the external attributes are not the! most important factors in their so- 1 cial standing. Character and man-J ners (which are the outgrowth off character) have the most to do with ! it after all. Society in England is i more nearly democratic than society in republican America. Men and women find their level here quickly enough. That is why so many oi our country people find their way honje in disappointment—not to put it. stronger—at the end of each season. They, too, misrepresent their country in the house of its friends. 1 We have no better’ delegates in them than we have in the impossible/ tourists.