Ward McAllister

“ They bring to the front merit of every kind; seek it in the remotest corners, where it modestly shrinks from observation, and force it into notice; adorn their houses with works of art, and themselves with all the taste and novelty they can find in any quarter of the globe, calling forth talent and ingenuity. Fashionable people cultivate and refine themselves, for fashion demands this of them. Progress is fashion’s watchword; it never stands still; it always advances, it values and appreciates beauty in woman and talent and genius in man. It is certainly always most charitable ”

“ As all the young men were to go through the same ordeal, it was less embarrassing. From the time of entering the ball-room until the late hour at which supper was served, the guests in the crowded rooms were laughing over the sight of each young man dropping on one knee before his partner and presenting her with a bouquet of flowers, and in low and tender words pouring out his soul in poetry. ”

“ We knew then, and we know now, that the whole secret of the success of these Patriarch Balls lay in making them select; in making them the most brilliant balls of each winter; in making it extremely difficult to obtain an invitation to them, and to make such invitations of great value; to make them the stepping-stone to the best New York society, that one might be sure that any one repeatedly invited to them had a secure social position, and to make them the best managed, the best looked-after balls given in this city. ”

“ The next great flutter in New York’s fashionable world was the announcement of a grand entertainment to be given, embracing all the features of a London ball, which, though a novelty here, had for years been done in London; that was to build an addition to one’s house, to be used but for one night, and to be made large enough to comfortably hold, with the house, one thousand or twelve hundred people. ”

“ Everything was abundant and lavish, and the whole affair was most imposing.
That winter the Archduke of Tuscany married one of the princesses of Bavaria, and the Austrian Minister gave them a ball, which I attended. The effect produced in approaching his palace, all the streets illuminated by immense flaring torches attached to the house, was grand. The ball-room was superb. From the ceiling hung, not one or two, but literally fifty or more chandeliers of glass, with long prisms dangling from them. The women were not handsome, but what most struck me was the freshness of their toilets. ”

“ No jostling or shoving, but human beings filling up every inch of space between the carriage wheels, as our horses, on a walk, dragged our carriage through them.
The most charming spot on earth for the last of winter and the spring months is the city of Rome. We went there under most favorable circumstances. A kind friend had leased an apartment for us in the Via Gregoriana, and we found Rome full of the crême de la crême of New York society. In Nazzari we had another Delmonico, and we kept dining and wining each other daily. ”

“ The man who gives salmon during the winter, I care not what sauce he serves with it, does an injury to himself and his guests. Terrapin is with us as national a dish as canvasback, and at the choicest dinners is often a substitute for fish. It is a shellfish, and an admirable change from the oft repeated filet de sole or filet de bass. At the South, terrapin soup, with plenty of eggs in it, was a dish for the gods, and a standard dinner party dish in days when a Charleston and Savannah dinner was an event to live for. ”

“ But this was not to be alone a feast for the eye; all that art could do, all that the cleverest men could devise to spread before the guests, such a feast as the gods should enjoy, was done, and so well done that all present felt, in the way of feasting, that man could do no more! The wines were perfect. Blue seal Johannisberg flowed like water. Incomparable ’48 claret, superb Burgundies, and amber-colored Madeira, all were there to add to the intoxicating delight of the scene. Then, soft music stole over one’s senses ”

“ A cotillion followed the dinner, and then back all returned to the dining-room and supped as the early dawn crept on us.
Close association at a small watering-place naturally produces jars. People cannot always agree. When you become very rich and powerful, and people pay you court, it follows in many cases that you become exacting and domineering. It soon became evident that people of moderate means, who had no social power to boast of, must needs be set aside and crowded out if the one-man power, or even the united power of two or three colossally rich men, controlled society. ”

“ You do go ahead and do their work, and then, when they find it is effectual, and they see your efforts will be crowned with success, they quietly come in and appropriate the credit of it.
However, on this occasion I agreed to act, as my duties were confined to forming the opening quadrille, and taking charge of the dancing. Picture to yourself a huge hall, one mass of human beings awaiting the opening of the ball, impatient of delay, anxious to dash off into the waltz, tempted by the inspiriting strains coming from a perfect band of one hundred well-trained musicians. ”

“ Now, all was to expand into noble womanhood, and she must needs put away childish things and bid a sweet farewell to all who had worshipped at her shrine. This worshipper wanted to make this an occasion in her life, as well as his; so with Delmonico’s genius we were to conceive a banquet for this fair maid, at which, like a Queen of May, she was to sit in a bower of roses. And this she literally did, placed there by her host, a scion of one of New York’s oldest families, whose family was interwoven with the Livingstons, and by marriage closely connected with the great Robert Fulton. ”

“ I remember during the summer passing her on Bellevue Avenue as she sat perched up on the box-seat of a drag, driving four fine horses, handling the ribbons with a grace{183} and ease that was admirable. All paid court to her. She won the hearts of both men and women.
At this time a man of great energy and pluck loomed up, and attracted, in fact absorbed to a great extent, the attention of society. Full of energy and enterprise, and supplied with abundant means, he did a great deal for New York, much that will live after him. ”

“ All did homage to her, and certainly she was deserving of it, for she had every charm, and never seemed to over-appreciate herself, or recognize that as Nature had lavished so much on her, and man had laid wealth at her feet, she was, in every sense, society’s queen. She was a woman sans aucune prétention. When you entered her house, her reassuring smile, her exquisitely{128} gracious and unpretending manner of receiving, placed you at your ease and made you feel welcome. She had the power that all women should strive to obtain, the power of attaching men to her, and keeping them attached ”

“ To all my guests the house was a surprise, for it had never before been shown to fashionable people. As on the North River, we passed the days in the saddle, and driving four-in-hands, lunched with many distinguished people, at their distant country places, and lived for those ten days as thoroughly an English life as one would have lived at a country house in England. I had invited young men to come down from New York every evening to join us at dinner, and even the fastidious and exacting Major, I think, was satisfied with everything. ”

“ Gladstone, Lord Palmerston, all were in society and were great diners out. In fact, all the distinguished men of Europe make part and parcel of society; whilst here, they shirk it as if it were beneath their dignity. They should know that there is no power like the social power; it makes and unmakes. The proverb is that, “The way to a man’s heart is through the stomach.”
Now as to the length of a good dinner. Napoleon the Third insisted on being served in three-quarters of an hour. As usual here we run from one extreme to another. ”

“ Blackstone did not wholly absorb all my time that winter. I exercised my memory in the morning and indulged my imagination of an afternoon, breathing soft words to lovely Southern maidens, in the piney groves which surround that charming city. From time immemorial they had always given these on Valentine’s Eve a Valentine party. ”

“ What I intend to convey is that the heads of these families, feeling secure in their position, knowing that they had great power when they chose to exercise it, took no leading part in society’s daily routine. They gave handsome dinners, and perhaps, once a year, a fine ball. I know of one or two families who have scrupulously all their lives avoided display, anything that could make fashionable people of them, holding their own, esteemed and respected, and when they threw open their doors to society, all made a rush to enter. ”

“ Meeting people at a large ball is no evidence of their being received in the smaller circles. What the French call the petit comité of good society is the inmost circle of all, but, naturally, it is confined to a very few. Meeting a person constantly at dinner, at the most exclusive houses, should be sufficient evidence to you that he or she is received everywhere, and if you find people persistently excluded from the best houses at dinners, you may be satisfied that there is some good reason for it. ”

“ To acquire such intimacy in a great city like New York would have taken you a lifetime. A fashionable woman of title from England remarked to me that we were one hundred years behind London, for our best society was so small, every one in it had an individuality. ”

“ Having had your champagne from the fish to the roast, your vin ordinaire through the dinner, your Burgundy or Johannisberg, or fine old Tokay (quite equal to any Johannisberg) , with the cheese, your best claret with the roast, then after the ladies have had their fruit and have left the table, comes on the king of wines, your Madeira; a national wine, a wine only well matured at the South, and a wine whose history is as old as is that of our country. I may here say, that Madeira imparts a vitality that no other wine can give. ”