Club (social)

“ The writer is a member of two clubs that are stimulating and helpful to the primary social settlement—the family—and believes that a moderate use of the club, like that of any good thing, is desirable. But when the club is ubiquitous and disproportionately valued, so that men, women, and adult children "recognize themselves more by their badges," and care more for ties of ribbon than ties of blood, then the club is inimical to home life. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Bright and ambitious girls will come to these down-town clubs to eat lunch and rest at noon, to study all sorts of subjects and listen to lectures, when they might hesitate a long time about joining a club identified with their own neighborhood, where they would be judged not solely on their personal merits and the unconscious social standing afforded to good clothes, but by other surroundings which are not nearly up to these. ”

“ Although no club for purely social purposes has been organized, each club has more or less social life connected with the regular club work. Through the efforts of the clubs fine lecturers, musicians and dramatic readers have been brought to the state and exhibits have been held and floral displays made ”

“ Besides these more formal organizations there are a number of department clubs, the Deutsche Verein, the Alliance Francaise, the Philosophy Club, the Economics Club, and informal groups such as the old Rhymesters' Club, which flourished in the late nineties, the Scribblers' which seems to have taken its place and enlarged its scope, the Social Study Circle, the little Socialist Club, and others through which the students express their intellectual and social interests. ”

“ The most usual form that the club activities assume is that of literary work of some kind, either as a gathering of literary women, or simply a gathering of women for some particular form of literary study. They usually give club banquets and club luncheons, but rarely attain to the dignity of a café. ”

“ Such a club indicates the possibilities of the institution, however; and many organizations of women are working with crude material through absurd phases toward accomplishment as happy.
In small communities where the opportunities are infrequent for theater, for social diversion of various kinds, the woman’s club is of the greatest help. It serves at once to focus and distribute all the better social and intellectual interests of the neighborhood. It may be a means of lifting a whole community to a livelier and more interesting social and intellectual level. ”

“ Other topics besides farming are occasionally studied but the business of the club is economic promotion of the well-being of the community. Incidentally, it has furnished a social center for the countryside. ”

“ 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. ”

“ To afford to its members the means of social intercourse, mutual helpfulness, mental and moral improvement, industrial welfare, and rational recreation. The Club shall not identify itself with any political, social, or theological party. ”

“ In the great majority of instances, the social club adopts some form of recreation—debating, music, chess, whist, football, tennis, cycling—the practice of which gives point and definition to the activities of members and secures secondary advantages. ”

“ 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? ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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? ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The poor man's club is a genial place—if the poor man has the price; there's a balmy smile on the barkeep's face, and bottles of goods on ice; the poor man's club is a place designed to brighten our darkened lives, and send us home, when we're halfway blind, in humor to beat our wives. So hey for the wicker demi-john and the free-lunch brand of grub! We'll wassail hold till the break of dawn, we friends of the poor man's club! ”

“ UNPLEASANT COMPANY.
[274]
"FRAGI AGRESTES."
"LET'S have a club," said Will Post to a group of his schoolmates; "we can meet once a week in some place, and have a motto, and a password, and everything, just like the big clubs."
"Agreed!" shouted the boys. "What shall we call ourselves?"
"The Do-Nothing Club," some one suggested; "we aren't going to do anything, only have all the fun we can." ”

“ Such are our countless clubs and societies formed frankly for recreation, or for mutual improvement, and for all kinds of ostensible purposes which serve merely as excuses or reasons for the existence of the club. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ We earn our dimes like the horse or ox, we toil like the fabled steer, and then we journey a dozen blocks to blow in the dimes for beer. While the women work at the washing tub to add to our scanty hoard, we happily meet at the poor man's club, where never a soul is bored. We recklessly squander our minted brawn, and the clubhouse owner thrives; and we'll homeward go at the break of dawn and joyously beat our wives. ”

“ 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. ”

“ And clubs for men upon the turf (I wonder they ar’n’t under it) ;
Clubs where the winning ways of sharper folks pervert the use of clubs,
Where knaves will make subscribers cry, “Egad! this is the deuce of clubs!”
For country squires the only club in London now is Boodle’s, sirs,
The Crockford Club for playful men, the Alfred Club for noodles, sirs:
These are the stages which all men propose to play their parts upon,
For Clubs are what the Londoners have clearly set their hearts upon.
Theodore Hook.
[51]
TO ANNE
HOW many kisses do I ask? ”

“ Each of these clubs is doing excellent work in its own way, striving to solve the problems nearest home. But while the local club has its particular function, the demands of the union upon each individual organization is equally great. ”

“ I proposed that a group of forward-looking people should get together and establish what might be called a home-club, or a hotel owned and run by its guests. There was nothing so very radical about this idea, for up in the Adirondacks are a number of clubs whose members rent cottages in the summertime and eat their meals in a club dining-room. Why might there not be in the same community a school, owned and run by the parents of the children? ”

“ Walker maintains, that Clubs are a preparation and not a substitute for domestic life. Compared with the previous system of living, they induce habits of economy, temperance, refinement, regularity, and good order. Still, a Club only offers an imitation of the comforts of home, but only an imitation, and one which will never supersede the reality.
However, the question became a subject for pleasant satire. ”

“ 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 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. ”

“ 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 ”

“ For the success of a Club you need a number of men perfectly incapable of all life save such as the Club supplies; who repair to the Club, not alone to dine and smoke and sup, and read their paper, but to interchange thought in that blended half-confidence that the Club imparts ”

“ No less does he press into his service phrases from the languages, as in the curious verses which follow, in praise of
CLUBS.
If any man loves comfort and
Has little cash to buy it, he
Should get into a crowded club—
A most select society! ”

“ From time to time various matters of local interest are taken up and discussed by the club, and considerable talent in debate has been developed in unexpected places. Occasionally the various neighborhood clubs get together for a day of sports and recreation. ”

“ Our notion has hitherto been, that a club was an invention of which a principal object was to prove that female society was far from being indispensable to man, and that all the joys of domesticity might be tasted in a state of single-blessedness beyond the precincts of home for a small annual payment. A thorough-going club-man would very soon drive a coach and four through the Regenerator's polite eloquence. ”

“ With such activities in mind as normal to a pedestrian club, certain matters of policy may be presented for consideration.
Two tendencies are sure to manifest themselves in any flourishing club: the one toward a limited membership of those who qualify by accomplishing difficult feats; the other toward an indiscriminate membership, including those who are ready to join anything—providing the rest do. Both tendencies are bad. The club should on the one hand require of its members an especial interest in the object of its being, but it should on the other hand avoid exclusiveness. ”

“ You can't have a club without a waiter in red plush and silver salver in his hand; then you can't bring a lady to a club, and you have to get into a corner to talk about them. Therefore I say a club is dull.
As the hearth and home grew all-powerful it became impossible for the husband to tell his wife that he was going to the tavern; everyone can go to the tavern, and no place in England where everyone can go is considered respectable. ”