Club (meeting)

“ If the club is small, compact in spirit, and on improvement bent, the study of some one period, author or movement is often most advantageous. If the club is large, and entertainment is largely the motive for meeting, a program that varies to meet the various demands of the membership is better. ”

“ The names may stand on the lists, the faces are absent, and one must wander through half a dozen clubs to really meet the aggregation of thinkers and workers of the grade who gathered in the snug corners of the Century's old club house in East Fifteenth Street when we were young fellows, and my father secured us cards for an occasional monthly meeting as the greatest favour he could do us. ”

“ The savour of the dish and the conviviality of the accidental meeting inspired the party with a resolution to establish a club, which was accordingly done under the title of the ‘Beefsteak Club’; and the party assembled in the painting-room. The members were afterwards accommodated with a room in the playhouse, where the meetings were held for many years.”
Among the earlier members were Hogarth, Theophilus Cibber, George IV., when Prince of Wales, the Earl of Sandwich, George Colman, Wilkes. ”

“ This Club, which partakes of the character of Arthur's and Boodle's, was founded by Lord Nugent, its object being, as stated in Rule 1, "to secure a convenient and agreeable place of meeting for a society of gentlemen, all connected with each other by a common bond of literary or personal acquaintance." ”

“ It is hardly practical in most cases to attempt to hold more than one meeting a week. The time should be set according to the convenience of the majority of the members. Sunday afternoon was found to be the best time for this little club to meet, but any week day will do as well. Occasionally, just before a play is to be given, a few call meetings may be necessary.
It is desirable that the club own the simple costumes which the members wear. ”

“ By being members of this club, each person would also receive help as to the management of business meetings, for, in the main, every business meeting was conducted in a similar manner, and as many middle-aged people did not understand even the ordinary duties of chairman, they could not do better than learn when young. ”

“ In some cases the associations thus formed, pro tempore, did not outlast the occasion, while in others the taste for social pleasures, or the accidental meeting of congenial tempers, led 78to the establishment of a permanent club, the members of which grew naturally among a warm-hearted people to take an interest in each other’s welfare. ”

“ Good manners in clubs are the same as good manners elsewhere—only a little more so. A club is for the pleasure and convenience of many; it is never intended as a stage-setting for a "star" or "clown" or "monologist." ”

“ Your clubs certainly nourish sociality greatly; those little tables, with one sulky man before one sulky chop—those hurried nods between acquaintances—that, monopoly of newspapers and easy chairs—all exhibit to perfection the cementing faculties of a club. ”

“ Now when an American has an idea, he directly seeks a second American to share it. If there be three, they elect a president and two secretaries. Given four, they name a keeper of records, and the office is ready for work; five, they convene a general meeting, and the club is fully constituted. ”

“ Within the last ten years clubs have become as plentiful as hotels nearly. And the enterprising City gentleman who fits up a big house with a dining and reading and smoking and morning and billiard room, and advertises the inauguration of the Pantheon Club, 'for the benefit of those gentlemen who are unable to enter the older clubs owing to their overcrowded condition,' requires names for his committee. ”

“ I want a club to take an occasional stranger into, for a drink, and to read the papers in, and sometimes to have a quiet meal in. Where do you think I should go? I want somewhere I needn't always be spick and span in, and somewhere I don't have to pay a vast sum. Alas, why are there no decent clubs? What do the jolly people all do? ”

“ Very different is the bran-new modern club whose interior my faithful artist has depicted, and whose appearance at five o’clock in the afternoon I am now called upon to describe. Gentlemen members of clubs, these gorgeous palaces are but the growth of one generation. Your fathers had, it is true, their Wattier’s, the Cocoa-Tree, White’s, and Boodle’s, but those were considerably more like gambling-houses than clubs. To obtain admission was exceedingly difficult, and to remain a member was, save to men of immense fortune, absolutely ruinous. ”

“ They are also quite as difficult to be elected to as any of the exclusive clubs in the cities—more so if anything, because they are open to the family and friends of every member, whereas in a man's club in a city his membership gives the privilege of the club to no one but himself personally. ”

“ It is a maxim with the average clubwoman that the “talent” must be on hand in very good season. Some clubs who are very secret about their affairs put you in a remote waiting-room which may or may not be warm. Others, remembering that you also are a clubwoman and likely to sympathize in their doings, give you a comfortable chair on the platform. As I am thoroughly in sympathy with the club idea and spirit, I like to hear the reports, provided they are not too long. At one enthusiastic club I sat during an hour or more while they thoroughly and conscientiously amended their constitution. ”

“ Often clubs can invite a speaker from outside to take up most of the hour; a traveller, a settlement worker, a college professor, an actor, a journalist, a judge of a Children's Court, a student of bird life, all have something worth while to contribute. Perhaps a writer will read from his books; or a musician will sing or play, or an artist will tell of life in the ateliers of Paris or Rome. Even in a small town one can find some one who has a friend who will come and help in such ways, and there is no better way to rouse [Pg 310] interest in a club than to offer such meetings occasionally. ”

“ No person shall be introduced more than once in twelve months. Other clubs are open to the admission of visitors at certain periods, and others again have ladies' days, at which a reception to the fair friends of the members is given. All this depends on the rules of the club. ”

“ But at gayer times, when there are gala receptions at the club, its steps are all buried under expensive carpet, soft as moss and covered over with a long pavilion of red and white awning to catch the snowflakes; and beautiful ladies are poured into the club by the motorful. ”

“ Kornemann, s.v. “Collegium” in Pauly-Wissowa, Realencyclopädie.
(W. W. F.*)
Modern Clubs.—The word “club,” in its modern sense of an association to promote good-fellowship and social intercourse, is not very old, only becoming common in England at the time of The Tatler and The Spectator (1709-1712) . It is doubtful whether its use originated in its meaning of a knot of people, or from the fact that the members “clubbed” together to pay the expenses of their meetings. The oldest English clubs were merely informal periodic gatherings of friends for the purpose of dining or drinking together. ”

“ Tick is the exception, not the rule, at a club; though there have been Irish members who have run goodly scores in their time with the cook and the waiter.
A man may, if he be so minded, make his club his home; living and lounging luxuriously, and grazing to his heart’s content on the abundant club-house literature, and enjoying the conversation of club friends. Soap and towels, combs and hair-brushes, are provided in the lavatories; and there are even some clubs that have bed-rooms in their upper storeys, for the use of members. ”

“ A president, above all her other duties, should see to it that the atmosphere of [Pg 5] the club is warm and friendly. If in other ways it is successful, if the study gives intellectual stimulus, and practical work is carried on effectively, still it is a failure if the members are either snobbish or unsympathetic. All the members of a club must be in harmony and work together in a spirit of comradeship if it is ever to reach its highest possibilities.
Last of all, should not a club extend its membership to as many as possible, rather than have a waiting list? ”

“ Some of the eminent men from the neighbouring village, among whom were the doctor, the lawyer, an antiquary, an analytical chemist, and others, had formed among themselves a club, which was to consist only of very choice spirits, like themselves, and if any guest were introduced among them, it was only to be with a letter of introduction and the full consent of all parties. ”

“ The fact of being a club member does not (except in a certain few especially informal clubs) grant any one the right to speak to strangers. If a new member happens to find no one in the club whom he knows, he goes about his own affairs. He either sits down and reads or writes, or "looks out of the window," or plays solitaire, or occupies himself as he would if he were alone in a hotel. ”

“ Equally high in the social scale but done quite differently is the Club Introduction. It is done by a club man who, for the life of him, can't remember the names of either of the two club men whom he is introducing, and who each, for the life of him, can't think of the name of the man they are being introduced by. ”

“ To become entranced is the club occupation. Instead of simple prayer-meetings in their dead season, these clubs hold regular séances for the purpose of being possessed, séances which they turn to very practical ends. ”

“ The general rule is that a member may invite to the use of the club for a period of ten consecutive days any one not a resident of the city, but can have no more than one guest at a time. No stranger shall be introduced a second time unless he shall have been absent from the city three months. ”

“ The men of the club meet in the auditorium and transact regular business while the Ladies’ Aid of the Club meet in the dining rooms. At the close of the business session all congregate in the auditorium where a program made up of songs, recitations, readings, essays, debates, dialogues, monologues, the club journal, four minute speeches, etc., is given. ”

“ The good that these clubs have already accomplished is a sure indication of the great benefits that will come to each member if he remains loyal to his organization and does all within his power to promote the interests of the whole. I have attended meetings of many of these clubs, upon many occasions, and I know whereof I speak when I say that "in union there is strength." Is there any better place to discuss the subject of supply and demand, the subject of prices, the merits of plants and cut flowers, than a florists' club? ”

“ Some English secretaries of legation and long-legged attachés, have indeed an ex-officio entry to these continental clubs, or “cercles,” where they come to lounge and yawn in the true Pall Mall fashion; but they soon grow tired of the hybrid places; and the foreigners who come to stare and wonder at them, go away more tired still, and, with droll shrugs, say, “Que c’est triste!” The proper club for a Frenchman is his café; for, without a woman to admire him or to admire, your Monsieur cannot exist ”

“ Of all places in the world, a club is the surest focus of speculation. You meet gentlemen there who hold stock in every line in the kingdom—directors, committee-men, and even crack engineers. I defy you to continue an altogether uninterested auditor of the fascinating intelligence of Mammon. ”

“ The informal club is often more suggestive of a fraternity than a club, in that every member speaks to every other—always. In one of the best known of this type, the members are artists, authors, scientists, sportsmen and other thinkers and doers. There is a long table set every day for lunch at which the members gather and talk, every one to every one else. There is another dining-room where solitary members may sit by themselves or bring in outsiders if they care to. ”

“ 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 club resulted from the more or less accidental coming together of men of congenial spirit, and the desire to cultivate each other's acquaintance more intimately than was possible in the larger Architectural Club of which they are all members, and over which are their club rooms. ”

“ There was likewise a Side-Table for such as had only drawn Blood, and shown a laudable Ambition of taking the first Opportunity to qualify themselves for the first Table. This Club, consisting only of Men of Honour, did not continue long, most of the Members of it being put to the Sword, or hanged, a little after its Institution.
Our Modern celebrated Clubs are founded upon Eating and Drinking, which are Points wherein most Men agree, and in which the Learned and Illiterate, the Dull and the Airy, the Philosopher and the Buffoon, can all of them bear a Part. ”

“ The principal clubs, in the large American cities, are princely habitations, full of everything that can minister to man's well-being. The American clubs are as luxurious as those of London; but this is the only resemblance which there is between them. The clubs, in large English towns, are sad and solemn; those in the American cities are bright and gay. In New York, Boston, Chicago, etc., the club is not merely a place where a man goes to read the papers, or to dine when his family is out of town; it is a place where men meet for converse, and to enjoy various relaxations. ”