To sit among a group of perfectly mute men, with an occasional word dropping into the silence like a stone in a well, was surely little better.
A girl told me she had once sat through an entire cotillion with a youth whose only remark during the evening had been (after absorbed contemplation of the articles in question), "How do you like my socks?"On another occasion my neighbor at table said to me:
"I think the man on my right has gone to sleep.He is sitting with his eyes closed!" She was mistaken.He was practising his newly acquired "repose of manner," and living up to the standard of his set.
The model young man of that period had another offensive habit, his pose of never seeing you, which got on the nerves of his elders to a considerable extent.If he came into a drawing-room where you were sitting with a lady, he would shake hands with her and begin a conversation, ignoring your existence, although you may have been his guest at dinner the night before, or he yours.This was also a tenet of his creed borrowed from trans-Atlantic cousins, who, by the bye, during the time I speak of, found America, and especially our Eastern states, a happy hunting-ground, - all the clubs, country houses, and society generally opening their doors to the "sesame" of English nationality.It took our innocent youths a good ten years to discover that there was no reciprocity in the arrangement; it was only in the next epoch (the list of the three referred to) that our men recovered their self-respect, and assumed towards foreigners in general the attitude of polite indifference which is their manner to us when abroad.Nothing could have been more provincial and narrow than the ideas of our "smart" men at that time.They congregated in little cliques, huddling together in public, and cracking personal old jokes; but were speechless with MAUVAISE HONTE if thrown among foreigners or into other circles of society.All this is not to be wondered at considering the amount of their general education and reading.One charming little custom then greatly in vogue among our JEUNESSE DOREE was to remain at a ball, after the other guests had retired, tipsy, and then break anything that came to hand.It was so amusing to throw china, glass, or valuable plants, out of the windows, to strip to the waist and box or bait the tired waiters.
I look at the boys growing up around me with sincere admiration, they are so superior to their predecessors in breeding, in civility, in deference to older people, and in a thousand other little ways that mark high-bred men.The stray Englishman, of no particular standing at home no longer finds our men eager to entertain him, to put their best "hunter" at his disposition, to board, lodge, and feed him indefinitely, or make him honorary member of all their clubs.It is a constant source of pleasure to me to watch this younger generation, so plainly do I see in them the influence of their mothers - women I knew as girls, and who were so far ahead of their brothers and husbands in refinement and culture.To have seen these girls marry and bring up their sons so well has been a satisfaction and a compensation for many disillusions.Woman's influence will always remain the strongest lever that can be brought to bear in raising the tone of a family;it is impossible not to see about these young men a reflection of what we found so charming in their mothers.One despairs at times of humanity, seeing vulgarity and snobbishness riding triumphantly upward; but where the tone of the younger generation is as high as I have lately found it, there is still much hope for the future.
