Roxburghe Club

“ Raggett, [41] the well known club proprietor of White’s, and the Roxburgh club in St James’s Square, was a notable character in his way. He began life as a poor man, and died extremely rich. It was his custom to wait upon the members of these clubs whenever play was going on. Upon one occasion, at the Roxburgh, the following gentlemen, Hervey Combe, Tippoo Smith, Ward (the member for London) , and Sir John Malcolm, played for high stakes at whist ”

“ Of late years, however, a less severe tone has prevailed amongst its members, many of whom are distinguished men.
144Sixty years ago the fact of club membership implied some social position or distinction on the part of the individual. White’s, Brooks’s, Boodle’s, Arthur’s, and a few other establishments, constituted really exclusive clubland, and to be elected to them was a matter of no little difficulty. A man of obscure birth, or one unknown to the committee, would have been sure of being blackballed. ”

“ The Tory patrician belonged to White’s; the Whig politician of old family was a member of Brooks’s; the country gentleman put his name down at Boodle’s or Arthur’s; the distinguished lawyer, divine, or man of letters, became a member of the Athenæum; and the soldier, who was a field officer, of the United Service. The membership of such clubs constituted an exclusive circle.
A club was a place in which men wrote letters and met their friends. ”

“ The walls were ceiled up with plain boards, and the rafters of the sloping roof remained unhidden from view; but to the village boys it seemed an admirable place to meet their requirements for a gymnasium and club-room, having been obtained for them through the energies of Sterndale, who had organized the club and raised the needed funds.
It had long been Sterndale’s ambition to form in Rockspur an amateur athletic club and build a club-house that should be appointed to meet the requirements of such an organization. ”

“ The committee set up a unanimous giggle.
"That is really a serious question," smiled Grace, "and one which the girls will have to decide for themselves. I should not wish any girl to feel that she were obliged to contribute money to the club, even for dues. We are not obliged to conform to any particular set of rules. Our club can be a purely informal organization with no obligations attached to it." ”

“ That, as guests or members, persons distinguished for rank, and social and convivial powers, have, through successive generations, been seated at its festive board— Bubb Dodington, Aaron Hill; Hoadley, author of The Suspicious Husband, and Leonidas Glover, are only a few names snatched from its early list. Sir Peere Williams, a gentleman of high birth and fashion, who had already shone in Parliament, was of the Club. Then came the days of Lord Sandwich, Wilkes, Bonnell Thornton, Arthur Murphy, Churchill, and Tickell. This is generally quoted as the golden period of the Society. ”

“ In appearance, too, he was a credit to the Bartlesville Commercial Club, when, with his pink face glowing above a glimpse of crimson neck scarf, dressed in pearl-gray spats, gray topcoat, gray business clothes indistinctly barred with black, and suède gloves of London smoke, he bounded up the clubhouse steps with the elasticity of well-preserved fifty, lightly swinging a slender stick. ”

“ You see we have to pay for the room; then we pay Jackson's wages, and there are cigars, etc., for the use of the members. Have you ever before belonged to a club?"
"No," said Roswell. "I have always declined hitherto (he had never before received an invitation) ; but I was so much pleased with what I heard of the Madison Club from my friend Graham, that I determined to join. I am glad that you are particular whom you admit as members of the club."
"Oh, yes, we are very exclusive," said Tracy. "We are not willing to admit anybody and everybody." ”

“ And that is always something. In an age when clubs are really almost universal, most men have had occasion to wish that their society would sit occasionally on some of the members. The member who bullies the servants is a not uncommon specimen of the p. 115club-bore. He may be called the bore truculent. He has been excellently caricatured by Thackeray in the “Book of Snobs.”
There we have the club-bore who makes such a fuss about his chop, and scolds the waiter so terribly. “Look at it, sir; is it a chop for a gentleman? Smell it, sir; is it fit to put on a club table?” ”

“ Nothing could have been more tranquil except the cool spaces, the dusky, sunny, airy, oak-hued shadows of the wide-windowed club—neither could anything have been less like Mrs. Grubey's or even Professor Herrick's idea of what an actors' club would be. The whole place seemed to rebuke its visitor, more graciously than had Hermann Deutch, for the feverish suggestion which Christina's calling had hinted round her name. ”

“ Plainville had had a taste of the big storm—huge drifts still rose in many places—and was ready to give full credit for plucky endurance of the hardships, both of the club’s wanderings to the old Calleck house and of the forced march of Sam and Orkney to the settlements; while the dash of a rescue party to the stone house and its return with the other members of the club, and Lon and the stricken Peter Groche, formed another chapter which caught the public fancy. ”

“ Duffield Rogers absolutely refused to leave his comfortable chair in the club and take a trip over the Burdock. The president delighted in Callahan's company, and got him made a member of the club, setting him down as a graduate of the Wahoo University, which was supposed to exist somewhere in the remote west. Rogers was a privileged member and a founder of the club, so the committee did not scrutinise his recommendation too closely.
"It's no use, Jimmy," he said. "Life is hard enough at best, without my spending any part of it in a beastly place like Portandit. ”

“ His son may be very undesirable, or his son may sell the house to some one whom the club is not willing to admit to membership. But Tuxedo society, instead of becoming, as might have been expected, a very narrow clique, seems to be singularly broad minded and tolerant. The difficulty of preserving the character of the place and keeping a large society together as, in all its essentials, a club, is very much less than might be expected. The place is extremely interesting to any observer of American social life. The club regulates everything. ”

“ Most English gentlemen do that when they marry, do they not?” said Mrs. Kavanagh.
“Some,” said Ingram. “But a good deal of nonsense is talked about the influence of clubs in that way. It is really absurd to suppose that the size or the shape of a building can alter a man’s moral character.”
“It does, though,” said Mrs. Lorraine confidently. “I can tell directly if a gentleman has been accustomed to spend his time in clubs. When he is surprised or angry or impatient, you can perceive blanks in his conversation which in a club, I suppose, would be filled up. ”

“ On the whole, they are a most civil class of men, and for this reason thoroughly deserve the 173Christmas subscription which serves as a sort of gigantic, but quite justifiable, tip. This is a comparatively new institution. It must be realized that club servants are not overpaid, and when upon duty their work is particularly severe. The electric bells never cease ringing until the club closes; every member expects his wants to command immediate attention, and not a few are capricious and exacting. ”

“ There was, to be sure, in every Southern city an old mausoleum of a club—sometimes two—each more desolate than the other—haunted by gouty old parties and bonvivants; but the young men never passed through their doors except on some call of urgency. When a man was old enough to be admitted to the club there was no young damosel on Malachi's steps, or any other steps, who would care a rap about him. ”

“ They are oftentimes productive of great good. Some of our distinguished men date their first impulse to improve and advance themselves to their connection with such a society. But the Madison Club had no salutary object in view. It was adapted to inspire a taste for gambling and drinking, and the money spent by the members to sustain it was worse than wasted.
Roswell, however, who would have found nothing to interest or attract him in a Debating Society, was very favorably impressed by what he had seen of the Madison Club. ”

“ Rollo’s father frowned very severely when he saw the yellow taxicab, but since he was not paying for it he said nothing.
“I am going to take you to my club,” said Uncle George.
“A club!” cried Rollo. “What is that?”
[Pg 69-70]
“Rollo never dreamed that ladies could be so beautiful”
“I will tell you,” said Uncle George. “A club is a place of refuge from one’s family. It is an organization where a man can order what he likes for dinner, when he likes. It is a [Pg 71] place where he can be sure that his letters will not be opened by mistake.” ”

“ The men are going to use it for a club."
"Good night!" I told him; "why should they use a club? We'll get out without any trouble; peace at any price."
"It's a sociable club," he said.
"Well," I told him, "I wouldn't want to get hit with a club no matter how sociable it is."
"It's going to be called the forearm club," he said.
Gee, I had to laugh. "You mean forum," I said. "What are you trying to do? Scare the life out of me with clubs and forearms?"
When we got to the troop room all the fellows were standing around, and Mr. Ellsworth, our scoutmaster, was there to tell us the worst. ”

“ Citizens of the more fortunate states may not know of the mysteries of the clubs. In Vincent’s the only bars are beer bars, and only in the clubs can a person get a drink, and only members are admitted. It is true that even such a small club as the Coq Bleu had thirty thousand members, and at a dollar a year that is a nice sideline. The little numbered membership cards cost a penny each for the printing, and the member wrote in his own name. ”

“ The Club, notwithstanding all its learned dignity in the eyes of the world, could occasionally unbend and play the fool as well as less important bodies. Some of its jocose conversations have at times leaked out; and the Society in which Goldsmith could venture to sing his song of "An Old Woman tossed in a Blanket" could not be so very staid in its gravity. Bennet Langton and Topham Beauclerk were, doubtless, induced to join the Club through their devotion to Johnson, and the intimacy of these two very young and aristocratic young men with the stern and somewhat melancholy moralist. ”

“ Dear Clarence has such a horror of intellectual women, that I—”
“But, Dorothy, you know when you founded the club, you said the membership would be for life, and—”
“Emily Marshmallow, I never said anything of the kind! And, if I did, only a person of your colossal selfishness would expect me to waste my time on a mere club when I want to devote eighteen hours a day to the selection of my trousseau, and the other six to Clarence! And, if you want to know my real opinion of the club, I consider it the greatest bore among my social duties!” ”

“ Anthony Trollope’s election to the Athenæum has already been mentioned as coming twelve years after his admission to the Garrick. In 1874 too, he was made free of another little society that, unlike the two clubs already named, has recently ceased to exist. The Cosmopolitan Club originated in a period whose social usages, though belonging to the last half of the Victorian era, are separated from the twentieth century by a space of more than years. ”

“ To make the company as select as possible, the establishment was regularly organized as a Club, and the election of members vested in a committee. 'Crockford's' became the rage, and the votaries of fashion, whether they liked play or not, hastened to enrol themselves. The Duke of Wellington was an original member, though (unlike Blücher, who repeatedly lost everything he had at play) the great Captain was never known to play deep at any game but war or politics. Card-tables were regularly placed, and whist was played occasionally ”

“ For this was the wisdom of the Club, and herein lay its immense superiority over every other log-rolling club, that whereas in those childish cliques every man is expected to admire every other, or to say so, in the Mutual Depreciation Society the obligation was all the other way. Every man was bound by the rules to sneer at the work of his fellow-members and, if he should happen to admire any of it, at least to have the grace to keep his feelings to himself. ”

“ This club has a real reason for its existence, a purpose, and we must make it worth while. It always seems to me as if girls could do so much better if they would hold hands, and work in unison—”
“Co-operate,” suggested Ruth.
“Yes, that’s just the right word,” Polly agreed, earnestly. “Boys always co-operate in their clubs. They seem to have the real feeling of fellowship. You know what I mean, Kate? Where all work together for the honor and glory of the whole, not just for yourself as a member.”
“Fraulein called it the esprit de corps,” said Ruth. ”

“ He cares little for society, and, with the exception of running down for an occasional visit to some country-house (where he is certain of the cook) , or going to the Riviera for a fortnight, seldom leaves 142town. The club is his home, and at heart he dislikes leaving its walls. Unlike the old-fashioned club-man, however, he is not unaffable to new members or strangers, and is fully alive to the increased comfort to be obtained from any modern improvement. ”

“ In the first place, it should contain two or three well-known men to act as figureheads, their names being a guarantee for the social standing of the club. In the second, one or two members ought to be thoroughly conversant with business matters, and well fitted to deal with the details of club finance. And, lastly, a certain proportion of its members ought to be men well in touch with the life of the club, and therefore thoroughly acquainted with its needs. ”