Clubman

“ 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. ”

“ CRAVEN. My child, I have my own club.
CHARTERIS (contemptuously) . Yes, the Junior Army and Navy! Do you call that a club? Why, they daren't let a woman cross the doorstep!
CRAVEN (a little ruffled) . Clubs are a matter of taste, Charteris. You like a cock and hen club: I don't. It's bad enough to have Julia and her sister—a girl under twenty—spending half their time at such a place. Besides, now really, such a name for a club! The Ibsen club! I should be laughed out of London. The Ibsen club! Come, Cuthbertson, back me up. ”

“ 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? ”

“ 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. ”

“ At this critical juncture, the president of the club, who is the very pink of ugliness itself, waits upon the strange gentleman, and takes him by the hand. “My dear sir,” says he, “you may as well walk with me to the club as not. Nature has designed you for us, and us for you. We are a set of men who have resolution enough to dare to be ugly; and have long let the world know, that we can pass the evening, and eat and drink together with as much social glee and real good humour as the handsomest of them. Look into this Dutch glass, sir, and be convinced that we cannot do without you.” ”

“ I myself chose a club from those in the bag.
"That's a niblick. You can hardly drive with a niblick."
"Why not? Is it an essential condition of the game that you should play a certain stroke with a particular club?"
"Not that I'm aware of. Still, I cannot but think that you will hardly do yourself justice if you drive with a niblick. If you are in search of a little variety why not drive with a putter? These are the clubs with which one generally drives." ”

“ The Club House overhung the rolling green of the golf links; from a place of vantage he saw that Eliza was not on the veranda; at one end a group of young men were drinking—teal Beyond his father and three companions, followed by caddies, rose above a hill. His father grasped a club and bent over the turf; the club described a short arc, the ball flashed whitely through the air, and the group trotted eagerly forward, mingling explanation, chagrin and prediction with heated and simple sums in arithmetic. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Then on with a fresh whiskey and soda, served far more daintily than at the club—the heavy, generous decanter, the tall, frail glass, the Irish-lace doilies. Laughter, the fragrance of violets, those serious little tête-è-têtes which generally amount to nothing. The warm pressure of a hand in a formal good-by—bah! it is a dull game to be always drinking with men. Those interminable rounds at the club; the same dull men and the same dull stories. Men bored Lamont. ”

“ In a previous article we have told of picking up a friend's golf-club in a spirit of gay nonchalance and making a glorious drive—our first. How our friend artfully left us alone with his bag of tools, how we drew a club out of it, how we carelessly set a quivering little white ball on a neat little pyramid of sand, how we swung the deadly weapon with serene insouciance, and how that doomed spheroid tore a shrieking gash in the atmosphere and lit on a hillside in the next county—all that we detailed to our friends with a frankness untempered by any feeling of personal modesty. ”

“ There is the dinner of the village benefit club, year after year. The object of the club is of the best, but its appearance upon club-day is a woeful spectacle to eyes that naturally look for a little taste upon an occasion of supposed festivity. What can be more melancholy than a procession of men clad in ill-fitting black clothes, in which they are evidently uncomfortable, with blue scarves over the shoulder, headed with a blatant brass band, and going first to church, and then all round the place for beer? ”

“ 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. ”

“ Surroundings in the clubroom were, however, so congenial that before long he showed guarded signs of amiability, albeit he found grounds for annoyance in the fact that some of his old companions had prospered, and had given up what was referred to as the old game to engage on sport that, relatively speaking, was of an honest, law-abiding character. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It is now so firmly established, and it is so popular that there is not a village or even a settlement in the United States which has not at least its casino, or its little coterie organized for golf, tennis, athletic, or merely social enjoyment. All of these, from the great metropolitan clubs of the cities down to the very humblest in the "wilds," are governed by club laws and are regulated by club etiquette. In New York, now a city of clubs, this etiquette differs much from that observed in London, Paris, or any of the large continental centers. In London, a man is identified with his club. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Is it any wonder that the men one thus encounters in clubs are stupid and miserable creatures, and that they find their pleasure in such banal sports as playing cards, drinking highballs, shooting pool, and reading the barber-shop weeklies?... The day a man's mistress is married one always finds him at his club. ”

“ If your youthful caddie seems bent on devoting all his life to golf in some shape or other, he should be forced to become apprenticed to the local club-maker, who should initiate him in the mysteries of club-making and club-repairing. If he becomes good at this he stands a better chance of getting employed on a permanent place as professional to a club. If the club is a prosperous one he has plenty of club-making, and will have to employ several men in the shop, while he has only to supervise. ”

“ 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." ”

“ 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 do not suspect that we English are pre-eminent for social gifts; and yet we are the only nation that furnishes clubable men. Frenchmen are wittier, Germans profounder, Russians—externally at least—more courteous and accommodating; and yet their Clubs are mere tripots—gambling establishments; and, except play, no other feature of Club-life is to be found in them. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”