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Show SOCIETY IN AMERICA. <br><br> The growth of society in America is a marvel. It would be difficult for a foreigner, accustomed to the courts of Europe, to see the difference between a ball at the Opera House, Terre Haute, Indiana, and one at the town hall in some old European city. (Berne, for instance,) in any respect but in that one of the uniforms and orders, which in Europe render the men as picturesque as the women. He would see more beautiful women at the Terre Haute, and better dressed women than he would see anywhere in Europe, except in the high salons of royalty, at London, Paris, Vienna and Rome. We take the name of the little Indiana city as typical of the thousand American towns, where society has thrown up its rapid tapestries until it ends with a fringe of barbaric pearl and gold on the shores of the Pacific. It is a peculiarity of society in America that at any watering-place, at any improvised gathering, a set of handsome, well-bred people step out of the ranks and form a German, or a game, or a coterie, or a picnic, and are quite as well-bred and well educated as any circle in Europe. Take them away from home, where Mrs. Jones looks down on Mrs. Brown, and where both are equally absurd in their assumptions, and Americans form a society which is enchanting. It is fresh and vigorous, and at the same time courteous and elegant. Of course the extraordinary beauty of our women, their almost abnormal talent for society manners and an apprehension of etiquette which is miraculous, has helped this along. For society, like any other art, has to be learned. A savage does not take to olives and finger bowls instinctively. But take an American girl out of any solitude, any remote village, deprive her of every advantage but her eyes and the current magazine, and suddenly transport her to New York or Paris, and she rises to the level of a duchess in dress, manners and well-bred ease. Men, of course, are made of less malleable material. They do not care, to start with; so, if fashionable etiquette bores them, they will not trouble themselves with it. But there are instances of masculine adaptation. Society in America is less a system of forms than in most other countries. But it can nowhere dispense wholly with forms, and forms are wholesome. The power of pageantry has a deep hold on our sensibilities. The Greeks and Romans kept it up, and even the "dull Boeotians" had their sacred procession, in which Jupiter, to rebuke Juno's whims, pretended to have taken a second wife, and a wooden doll was carefully dressed in bridal veil. Happy moment! When angry Juno tears the white disguise away and falls the repentant into Jupiter's arms, promising never to sulk, no, "nevermore," what an opportunity for all dull Boeotians to fall on each others shoulders after the inconvenient, classic fashion, and hence reconciliation and forgetfulness of a year's quarrels. Society is a pageant, a procession, a Roman triumph, a Greek game, an excuse for meeting each other, adorning the body and exercising the handsome qualities of the mind. Hermits are very apt to be dirty, therefore we may believe that society is cleansing. Hermits universally have a bad opinion of their kind and of each other. He who can command the crowd and himself, thinks well of his species; he is a philanthropist, and cannot see too much of them. People who do not go into society become intellectually emaciated, forever breathing their own mental air, redolent of egotism. We mean, of course, not necessarily fashionable society, but some society. To go into society, one must go out of himself beyond his own narrow introspection. If society is poor, let him make it better. There are always beautiful possibilities in society. It is a painful movement to make one's self acceptable in body and mind for others. If the abuses of society are apparent, such as too great love of pleasure, the cultivation of vanity or worldliness, the enchantments of society should be forgotten. It is the transfiguration of daily life, a rising form the prosaic, a relief from our russet cares. We are astonished at the ideas which spring into our minds, the brightening effect of the attrition of society. Above all things, the enchantments of society bring us new friends. We sail out into a summer sea to find spice islands. There is nothing so charming in life as the discovery of a new friend. Society is full of these argosies. And we, as members of this body politic, should be slow to take offense, forgiving of injuries, fancied or otherwise, always saying to ourselves "Still in they right hand carry gentle peace, To silence envious tongues." <br><br> -M.E.W.S., in Boston Traveler. |
