Mayfair

“ It is more respectable than the most respectable suburb. Its attitude to Mayfair is that of a mother to a daughter who has gone on the stage and made a success. Kensington Lane is almost tolerant of Mayfair. ”

“ The mind of Mayfair, when it aspires to show what it really can do, lives in the hope of a new divorce case, and an indulgent providence—London is positively in certain ways the spoiled child of the world—abundantly recognises this particular aptitude and humours the whim. ”

“ There was, in the day I now refer to, a certain house in Chesterfield Street, Mayfair, which few young men anxious for the eclat of society passed without a wish for the acquaintance of the inmate. To that small and dingy mansion, with its verandahs of dusky green, and its blinds perpetually drawn, there attached an interest, a consideration, and a mystery. Thither, at the dusk of night, were the hired carriages of intrigue wont to repair, and dames to alight, careful seemingly of concealment, yet wanting, perhaps, even a reputation to conceal. ”

“ Babs appeared in Mayfair at the age of seventeen, and instantly took the town by storm, in virtue of her authentic and audacious vitality. She had the face of a Sir Joshua Reynolds angel, the figure of a Botticelli one, the tongue of a gamin, and the spirits of an everlasting carnival. Her laugh, the very sound of that delicious enjoyment, set the drawing-room in a roar, and her{129} conversation the smoking-room, where she was quite at home—there was never anyone so complete as she, never such an apple of attractiveness, of which all could have a slice. ”

“ Snobbishly so called. Why draw these crude distinctions? We all know that Mayfair happens to lie a few miles further west than Whitechapel. It argues a lack of breeding to go on calling attention to the fact. ”

“ I never saw a man so improved. He had lost his brusqueness, and was very anxious to please us.
"It is extraordinary," said mother afterwards; "really I never knew that house-agents could be such agreeable people. No. 17 Graham Square is a handsome house, Westenra, it is a great pity that it is not situated in Mayfair."
"But mother, dear mother, we could not have a boarding-house in the very midst of our friends," I said with a smile; "we shall do splendidly in Graham Square, and we should not do at all well in Mayfair." ”

“ Now the sun was so high and bright over London that day that the voices of Americans were distinctly heard rising above the polished tumult of the Berkeley Hotel, crying plaintively for ice; and when at last our young writer came into Mayfair he was grateful for the cool quiet streets, but being still at some discomfort from the effects of the heat on his person, he thought to turn into Mount Street Gardens and rest a while beneath the trees. ”

“ THE SEA-GREEN INCORRUPTIBLE CONSTANCE LADY WHITTLEMERE lives in a huge gloomy house in the very centre of Mayfair, has a majestic appearance, and is perfectly ready for the Day of Judgment to come whenever it likes. ”

“ And the distinction which in Mayfair and Belgravia attaches to those who have been in the boxes and stalls on Parthenon first night is not greater than that which, in Bloomsbury and Camden Town, accrues to those who have occupied places—not necessarily seats—in the other parts of the house. It is understood, too, that the good will of Bloomsbury and Camden Town is much more valuable to a play than the best wishes of Mayfair and Belgravia. ”

“ Ignorant of what was in store, Hilda Murray, coming in from luncheon, went into her drawing-room, and since the day was wet and dismal, ordered the curtains, to be drawn, the lights to be turned on. She relished enormously the warm and comfortable cosiness of that room, furnished pleasantly, with a good deal of taste, if without marked originality; there were dozens of such apartments in Mayfair, with the same roomy, chintz-covered chairs, Chippendale tables and marquetry cabinets, with the same pictures on the walls. Wealth was there without ostentation, art without eccentricity ”

“ A massive butler let me into the usual narrow, high-ceiled Mayfair hall, richly lighted and luxurious; the usual convenient maid in a white cap appeared at the first landing to show the way to the proper room for my wraps. After Lady Torquilin's expression of interest in how they behaved, I had been wondering whether the Maffertons had any idiosyncrasies, and I did not waste any unnecessary time in final touches before going down to see. I like people with idiosyncrasies, and lately I had been growing accustomed to those of the English nation ”

“ But don't envy me too much; for the British country-house has at moments, for a cosmopolitanised American, an insuperable flatness. On the other hand, to do it justice, there is no doubt of its being one of the ripest fruits of time—and here in Scotland, where you get the conveniences of Mayfair dovetailed into the last romanticism of nature—of the highest results of civilization. ”

“ Many men and many women prominent in the life of London have lived in houses looking upon this Square during its two hundred years of existence.
Mayfair, an aristocratic residential section of London, has Bond Street and Park Lane on the east and west; with Piccadilly and Oxford Street on the south and north. It is named for a fair held where Shepherd's Market is now in each May until about the middle of the 18th century.
[Pg 149]
Through the Mayfair district stretches Curzon Street named for the third Viscount Howe—George Augustus Curzon ”

“ She prepared to play her new rôle with the ardour which she had always shown in seconding her husband, even in the most trifling affairs of life, quietly effacing herself, satisfied and happy if Philip seemed to appreciate the efforts that she made to please him.
Philip left his house in Elm Avenue without even trying to sublet it. He took a house in Belgravia and installed himself there among the aristocracy and plutocracy of London. Mayfair is, perhaps, still more aristocratic and select ”

“ From all nations, peoples and languages were they gathered together; France, Germany and Russia all sent representatives to this court of Mayfair, which was as exclusive in one sense as it was democratic in another. For into other courts any successful grocer and his wife can penetrate and make their obeisance, provided they have wealth, benevolence and respectability to be their sponsors, but mere benevolence and respectability were as powerless as unweaned babes to secure an entry on to Lady Grote’s lawn. ”

“ But to go deeper, beneath what people said (and these judgements, how superficial, how fragmentary they are!) in her own mind now, what did it mean to her, this thing she called life? Oh, it was very queer. Here was So-and-so in South Kensington; [Pg 185] some one up in Bayswater; and somebody else, say, in Mayfair. And she felt quite continuously a sense of their existence; and she felt what a waste; and she felt what a pity; and she felt if only they could be brought together; so she did it. And it was an offering; to combine, to create; but to whom?
An offering for the sake of offering, perhaps. ”

“ Usually the matches take place at different estancias on successive Sundays, and if there should be a homely English girl about—well, she receives as much attention as a real beauty would get in Mayfair. ”

“ Yesterday was published a proclamation by her Majestie, prohibiting the erecting or making use of any booths or stalls in Mayfair, for any plays, shows, gaming, musick meetings, or other disorderly assemblies.' [347] That this had been expected is shown by Steele, writing on April 18, 1709. 'Advices from the upper end of Piccadilly say, that May Fair is utterly abolished.' [348]
The Tatler (No. 21) makes merry over its downfall, and says, 'if any lady or gentleman have occasion for a tame elephant, let them enquire of Mr. Pinkethman, who has one to dispose of at a reasonable rate. ”

“ What a dear old place!” said the guests.
“It makes one quite enamoured of the country,” exclaimed Lady Fanshawe, one of the most determined diners-out in Mayfair. “I never look at a scene like that without wishing I could give up London altogether. I am sure I could be content. It would be so charming to get rid of conventionality and be perfectly natural. You really ought to send that drawing to the Academy, Miss Eaton.”
That we should take pleasure in pictures of filthy, ruined hovels, in which health and even virtue are impossible, is a strange sign of the times. It is more than strange ”

“ On the east side the most important building is [Pg 65] the Junior United Service Club, erected in 1852 by Nelson and James.
Market Street and St. James's Market recall the market held "west of the Haymarket, mid-way between Charles and Jermyn Street." This originated in a fair held in St. James's Fields, before the square was built, and from which Mayfair partly derives its name. This fair was suppressed on account of disorder in 1651, but revived again, and was not finally stopped until the end of Charles II.'s reign. ”

“ The five thousand pounds were quite certain; and the money, though it could not be called a large fortune for a young lady, would pay his debts and send him out a free man to Patagonia. And the family honours were certainly true. She was the undoubted niece of the Duke of Mayfair, and such a connection might in his career be of service to him. Lord Mistletoe was a prig, but would probably be a member of the Government. Mounser Green liked Dukes, and loved a Duchess in his heart of hearts. ”

“ From 1750 onwards she sought to make her husband's house in Hill Street, Mayfair, 'the central point of union' for all the intellect and fashion of the metropolis, but she invariably gave intellect the precedence of rank. 'I never invite idiots to my house,' she wrote to Garrick in 1770 (Mr. Alfred Morrison's manuscripts, Hist. MSS. Comm. 9th Rep. pt. ii. p. 480 a) . In the early days of her London career she mainly confined her efforts as a hostess to literary breakfast parties, of which Madame Bocage, a French visitor to London in 1750, gave a very nattering description {Letters, 1770, i. ”

“ Mayfield is a city on a hill on the skirts of the hot hop district of which Burwash is the Sussex centre. To walk about it even in April is no exhilaration; but in August one thinks of Sahara. I lived in Mayfield one August and could barely keep awake; and we used to look across at the rolling chalk Downs in the south, between Ditchling and Lewes, and long for their cool, wind-swept heights. They can be hot too, but chalk is never so hot as sand, and a steady climb to a summit, over turf odorous of wild thyme, is restful beside the eternal hills and valleys of the hop district. ”

“ Mayfield is not the man to take 'No' for an answer once he has set his heart upon a thing. I told you before that he was a scoundrel, and I am in a position to prove it. Not that the fellow has done anything to bring himself within the grip of the law--your City rascal is too clever for that. And your father is afraid of him; he watches him as a dog watches his master. If he is in the power of that man he must get out without delay. He must raise money on the property----"
"He can't," Mary said sadly. ”

“ Mayburn came down once or twice to see his poor, queer, dear old Palairet, and in London boasted much of the experience. “He’s too, too wonderful,” he said. “He has achieved a most delicate, recondite harmony. One never heard anything just like it before, and can’t, for the life of one, tell just what the notes are. Effort, constant effort, amidst constant quiet and austerity. Work is his passion, and yet never was any creature so passionless. He’s like a rower, rowing easily, indefatigably, down a long river, among lilies, while he looks up at the sky.” ”

“ Mayfield ground his teeth together and swore that Dashwood should pay for this before long. He held the fortunes of the baronet in the hollow of his hand; his passion for Mary was the more inflamed by her icy coldness. It would be good to humble her pride in the dust, to compel her to come to his feet and do his bidding. All the same, Mayfield had made up his mind to have an explanation after breakfast. He smiled and talked, though his anger was hot within him.
"Mr. Mayfield will want a time-table presently, my dear," Sir George was saying in his most courtly manner. ”

“ Whole families embarked on board the Mayflower, the Fortune, the Ann, the Mary and John, and other ships that brought their precious freight in safety to a New World. Of the one hundred and one persons who came in the Mayflower, in 1620, twenty-eight were females, and eighteen were wives and mothers. ”

“ Of the forty-one who signed the “solemn compact” before-mentioned on board the Mayflower, twenty alone survived; the living were scarcely sufficient to bury the dead; the hale to attend to the sick. Among those who died thus early, were some of the most distinguished men; the excellent John Carver, whom they had by mutual consent appointed to be their governor, had on his first landing lost a son, and soon after the Mayflower took her departure for England, he himself was carried off suddenly, and his wife, broken-hearted, did not long survive. ”

“ What one man knew in Mayville was every man’s property. Gossip always spread through the town like wildfire. So it happened that on the morning of the arrival of the Nancy Jane and the Spray there was a buzzing and a shaking of heads and a wagging of tongues; and before long the whole town knew that something of vast importance was about to take place up at Squire Ellis’s court.
“It’s those young fellows that set the hotel afire over across at Southport,” said a certain tall, gaunt individual, who happened to be the centre of an excited group on one of the street corners, near the town pump. ”