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? ”

“ The selfish club-man par excellence has been depicted as earthing himself from pursuit in the sanctuary of his club, there to eat his fill unmolested, with no remonstrant at hand to remind him of the gout when enjoying his turtle, or to talk of cupping when the glass of champagne is at his lips. ”

“ I came to my club to dine always late, I played bridge badly, but my partners endured my play, for I was holding the splendid cards of the unlucky in love. I never refused an invitation to go round to another man's rooms and play after the closing of the club, for always I strove to return at the last possible moment to the loathed emptiness of my rooms. ”

“ A dozen of the members of the club are assembled; a hearty and hospitable welcome greets the stranger—a welcome so warm that he cannot feel he is a stranger; every face is radiant with health, every lip moist with appetite ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Pictures of the Social Life of the Metropolis during the last two centuries are by no means rare. We possess them in Diaries, Memoirs, and Correspondence, in almost countless volumes, that sparkle with humour and gaiety, alternating with more serious phases,—political or otherwise,—according to the colour and complexion, and body of the time. Of such pictures the most attractive are Clubs. ”

“ CLUBS AND CLUB ETIQUETTE
A club, as every one knows, is merely an organization of people—men or women or both—who establish club rooms, in which they meet at specified times for specified purposes, or which they use casually and individually. A club's membership may be limited to a dozen or may include several thousands, and the procedure in joining a club may be easy or difficult, according to the type of club and the standing of the would-be member. ”

“ 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. ”

“ There is a club in Floralia, nay, it is the Club;—all other clubs being for purposes gymnastic, patriotic, theatric, or political, and out of society altogether.
The Club is very fond of black-balling, and gives very odd reasons for doing so, instead of the simple and true one, that it wants to keep itself to itself. It has been known to object to one man because his hair curled, and to another because he was the son of a king, and to another because his boots were not made in Paris. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The history of
“The dear old street of clubs and cribs,
As north and south it stretches,”
is one which, if its record were fully written, would be found to have no little connection with the annals of the country. Its position, its proximity to the Palace, its past inhabitants, its famous club houses (where so much of the history of the country was, and is, evolved,) all make for its claim in this respect.
WHITE’S CLUB.
On our left is the famous bow window of “White’s,” where the dandies used to assemble to quiz the ladies on their way to the drawing-rooms. What a history has that club! ”

“ For a long time Jerry and I have had the idea of forming a club. We talked of it last year, after Christmas, and again after we gave the operetta. But you know what a hard year we had over basketball, and then so many of us became sick that somehow the club idea was 41 put away and forgotten. But now, as Jerry says, ‘the time has come.’ What we’d like to do is to form a club from a certain number of girls in the senior class. It mustn’t be just a social affair but one devoted to the purpose of looking out for anyone that needs our help. ”

“ Gatewood raised her pretty eyes in silence; Kerns returned her amused gaze rather blankly.
"Clubs!" sniffed Gatewood. "What are clubs but pretexts for wasting time? What mental, what spiritual stimulus can a man expect to find in a club? ”

“ Any one of us would enjoy it, if he weren't so self-conscious. And it's more picturesque than golf and takes more skill. And what courtesy! These men form what is really a club—a club in its primitive and true sense. ”

“ Indoors, the handsomely furnished, beautifully decorated club rooms, which are located in the kindergarten building, offer the maximum of elegance and comfort to club members. There, in harmonious groups, they may engage in conversation, study, writing, musical exercises, and other varieties of club work. The esthetic tastes of the members are quickened, and their pleasures much enhanced, by the fine display of oil paintings, water colors, pencil sketches, etchings, and photographs, which have been hung on the walls, by admiring friends from the art and photography clubs. ”

“ No dinners are so good to him as the club dinners; he can read no journals but those he finds in the club news-paper-room; he writes his letters on the club paper, pops them into club envelopes, seals them with the club seal, and despatches them, if they are not intended for postage, by the club messengers. He is rather sorry that there is no club uniform. He would like, when he dies, to be buried in a club coffin, in the club cemetery, and to be followed to the grave by the club, with members of the committee as pall-bearers. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Now that the old-fashioned club-man has disappeared, a glance at his ways may not be out of place. Generally a bachelor of the most confirmed kind, his whole life centred in his club, to which he made it a habit to go every day at the same hour, and when possible occupy the same chair, which in course of time was accorded to him as a sort of right. ”

“ One who is unacquainted with the club system as carried on in London can scarcely imagine the conveniences they present. Every member appears to be at home, and all seem to own a share in the club. There is a free-and-easy way with those who frequent clubs, and a license given there, that is unknown in the drawing-room of the private mansion. ”

“ 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." ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 ”

“ If you told the men at the club that such and such a thing was religion they’d most of ’em kick like the deuce; but when they get the thing without explanation they take to it every time. But you were asking me about my connection with the club. It began four years ago, when they first got into Miss Smedley’s house. ”

“ As an old clubbist I venture to think that the opinion which mainly prevails amongst ladies with regard to London Clubs, and their operations upon the minds and habits of London men, is substantially incorrect. The modern club is a purely modern institution—the growth of the last twenty years. ”

“ The modern club is simply a more refined substitute for the old-fashioned tavern, and is on the whole an advance in morals as well as manners. In our large cities a man in a certain social coterie belongs to a club, if he can afford it, as a means of contact with his fellows, and to have various conveniences which he cannot so economically obtain at home. ”

“ Dining in a club means you’re surrounded by people who're pretty much alike. Their membership in the club means they’re there because they are all interested in golf, or because they’re university graduates, or belong to the same political party or write, or paint, or have incomes of over fifty thousand a year, or something. ”

“ 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." ”

“ The present Work aims to record this Club-life in a series of sketches of the leading Societies, in which, without assuming the gravity of history or biography, sufficient attention is paid to both to give the several narratives the value of trustworthiness. From the multitude of Clubs it has been found expedient to make a selection, in which the Author has been guided by the popular interest attached to their several histories. ”

“ 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. ”

“ A tee where no tannin can lurk;
The soldier may come, and we'll promise to show
Some hazards a soldier may shirk;
The statesman may joke, as he tops every stroke,
That at last he is high in his aims;
And the clubman will stand with a club in his hand
That is worth every club in St. James'.
The palm and the leather come rarely together,
Gripping the driver's haft,
And it's good to feel the jar of the steel
And the spring of the hickory shaft.
Why trouble or seek for the praise of a clique?
A cleek here is common to all ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Such are the many purely athletic, sports and pastimes clubs, the Jockey Club, the Alpine, chess, yacht and motor clubs. Then there are literary clubs, musical and art clubs, publishing clubs; and the name of “club” has been annexed by a large group of associations which fall between the club proper and mere friendly societies, of a purely periodic and temporary nature, such as slate, goose and Christmas clubs, which are not required to be registered under the Friendly Societies Act. ”

“ The club has never had any purpose except the purely personal object of bringing together a few friends who did not want to drift apart. It has happened that these cronies had developed into big-wigs of various kinds, and therefore the club has incidentally—I might say accidentally—had a good deal of influence in the scientific world. But if I had to propose to a man to join, and he were to say, Well, what is your object? ”