Country club

“ Foremost among these meanwhile was that of the plentiful presence, freshly recognized, of absolute values too—which offer themselves, in the midst of the others, with a sharpness of their own, and which owe nothing, for interest, to any question of the general scale. The Country Club, for instance, as I have already had occasion to note, is everywhere a clear American felicity; a complete product of the social soil and air which alone have made it possible, and wearing whenever met that assured face of the full-blown flower and the proved proposition. ”

“ I had been several times to luncheon at the Country Club and had met a number of delightful Americans there. It was all very new and exciting. And so invariably beautiful! And I was absurdly glad that Bill ranked very high in the estimation of the other men, as a golfer. Watching remnants of the game from the long, wide Club-porch, I was astounded by the seriousness with which grown men pursued an innocuous white ball for miles and miles of green turf. Once, in the late afternoon, together with a party of several women including Mercedes Howell, I followed a match game for a time. ”

“ They also go to the Country Club on Saturday nights, leave their motors standing in the drive, eat a lukewarm supper that tastes like papier-mâché, and dance themselves to wiltedness.
Another group is entirely masculine, being made up of husbands of various ages, their mutual bond being the downtown club to which they go daily, and in which the subjects discussed are politics, golf, and the evils of prohibition. ”

“ Without being in the least pretentious, it is a real country club, run for men and women who know what a real club is.
When you sit at luncheon at the large round table in the men's café you may find yourself between a famous polo-player from Meadowbrook, and a bronzed young ranch-owner, who will tell you that cattle rustling still goes on in his section of the country. The latter you will take for a perfect product of the West, a "gentleman cowboy," from a novel. ”

“ But I was resolved to show Millington that his trust was not misplaced, and I ran the nose of the machine into a tree, threw on the high speed suddenly until I heard a grinding noise that told me the gears were stripped. Then I left the car there and walked on to the Country Club.
A Country Club is an institution conducted for the purpose of securing as many new members as possible, in order that their initiation fees may pay for the upkeep of the golf green. ”

“ But neither golf nor tennis, dancing nor sailing, is the object of the club's existence. Sport is encouraged by these clubs for the sake of general sociability. In England sociability is a by-product of an interest in sport.
The Country Club at Tuxedo is not perhaps the oldest, but it is one of the oldest institutions of the kind in America. In connection with it a man can enjoy almost any kind of recreation from a Turkish bath to a game of tennis, either the lawn or the far rarer original kind. ”

“ Louis is struck by the very small, exclusive clubs. One is the Florissant Valley Country Club, with a pleasant, simple club-house and a very charming membership. But the most famous little club of the city, and one of the most famous in the United States, is the Log Cabin Club. I do not believe that in the entire country there is another like it. The club is on the outskirts of the city, and has its own golf course. Its house is an utterly unostentatious frame building with a dining room containing a single table at which all the members sit at meals together, like one large family. ”

“ There are also all over England clubs specially devoted to particular objects, golf clubs, yacht clubs and so forth. In these the members are drawn together by their interest in a common pursuit, and are forced into some sort of acquaintanceship. But these are very different in spirit and intention from the American Country Club. It exists as a kind of center of the social life of the neighborhood. There may be and often are golf links connected with it. There are tennis courts, sometimes swimming baths. There is always a ball-room. ”

“ The Country Club House was an elaborate one, with broad verandas and large, high-ceilinged halls and rooms. The walls bore the usual decorations of antlers and other trophies of the chase, and the appointments were luxurious and comfortable. ”

“ Clair Country Club for lunch and golf, about a twenty-mile run through the suburbs. This is a comparatively small and new club, but our host told us that they were soon to have a fine club-house and improve the links. The location is attractive, and the luncheon was delicious. We had brought our golf bags, tennis racquets, and bathing suits with us, much to the amusement of our friends. After sitting in the car day in and day out, I know of no better way to stretch your legs and arms and to exercise your stiff muscles than to put in a few hours at either game. ”

“ As far back as my earliest acquaintance with the royal and ancient game, the Old Guard was an institution of the Yavapai Golf and Country Club—a foursome cemented by years and usage, an association recognised as permanent, a club within the club—four eighteen-handicap men, bound by the ties of habit and hopeless mediocrity. The young golfer improves his game and changes his company, graduating from Class B into Class A; the middle-aged golfer is past improvement, so he learns his limitations, hunts his level and stays there. ”

“ A Country Club seems to be an American institution. We don't seem to have them. They are primarily for the folk who live in towns. American folk like to get together as much as possible and to be sociable. Please remember that all my friends here are steel people and generally rich. Some belong to quite old families, but whatever they are they have all got something attractive about them. ”

“ After dark on Saturday night one could stand on the first tee of the golf-course and see the country-club windows as a yellow expanse over a very black and wavy ocean. The waves of this ocean, so to speak, were the heads of many curious caddies, a few of the more ingenious chauffeurs, the golf professional's deaf sister—and there were usually several stray, diffident waves who might have rolled inside had they so desired. This was the gallery.
The balcony was inside. It consisted of the circle of wicker chairs that lined the wall of the combination clubroom and ballroom. ”

“ In the larger cities there is usually another club, somewhat less formal in architecture, decoration, and spirit, and given over, broadly speaking, to the younger men—though there is often a good deal of duplication of membership between the first mentioned type of club and the second. The Tavern of Cleveland is of the second category; so is the Saturn Club of Buffalo, of which I spoke in a former chapter. Almost every good-sized city has, likewise, its university club, its athletic club, and [ 50] its country club. ”

“ Langhorne mused. “There is a lot of malaria in those woods, Storm, and the discomforts of camp are abominable, to say nothing of the indigestible cooking provided by the average guide. Now, if you will take my advice, you will pick out some nice, quiet country club with a good green and play your eighteen holes every day. There is nothing like golf to set a man up; gentleman’s game, steadies the nerve, clears the eye, fills the lungs with good fresh air and not too strenuous. ”

“ The business-man golfer is seen at his best at the [Pg 217] country clubs near to the great cities. There is nothing elsewhere which for its healthy, honest pleasures and the satisfaction it yields is comparable to the American country club and the life that is pursued there. ”

“ The Westfield Hunt Club was primarily a sporting colony—that is, outdoor sport was its ruling passion. Cross-country riding had been its first love, at a time when the free-born farmers of the neighborhood looked askance at the introduction of what they considered dudish British innovations. Yet it promptly offered hospitality to the rising interest in sports of every kind, and the devotees of tennis, polo and golf found there ample accommodation for the pursuit of their favorite pastimes. ”

“ We have started a small country club where poor boys and girls can enjoy billiards, bowling, golf, and tennis. Any boy or girl in this town who has a longing for better things is sought and found by our ministers, and all kinds of encouragement are offered. ”

“ All these sports and homely out-of-door duties and pleasures are nearby, many of them just the other side of the front door. Those classed as sports may require a country club membership but even this is on a more modest scale. ”

“ Among social clubs are the Winthrop Club, the Bristol Club, the Taunton Boat Club, the Yacht Club, and the Country Club. A good water-supply, owned by the city, is obtained from neighbouring lakes and ponds, along the shores of which are many summer cottages. ”

“ Grosse Pointe with its rich setting and rich homes; the fine new railroad station; the "Cabbage Patch"; the "Indian Village" (so called because the streets bear Indian names) with its examples of modest, pleasing, domestic architecture. Then there are the boulevards, the fine Wayne County roads, the clubs—the Country Club, the Yacht Club, the Boat Club, the Detroit Club, the University Club, all with certain individuality. And there is the unique little Yondatega Club of which Theodore Roosevelt said: "It is beyond all doubt the best club in the country." ”

“ The Chautauqua Town and Country Club was formed to help those who wish to help themselves. It aims to show by simple lessons how to raise plants of all kinds, how to care for animals, how to take care of your garden so that it will be a source of pleasure and profit. Half a thousand people have already joined the club and are now at work in good earnest. ”

“ Almost every large city in the country has one solid, dignified old club, occupying a solid, dignified old building on a corner near the busy part of town. The building is always recognizable, even to a stranger. It suggests a fine cuisine, an excellent wine cellar, and a great variety of good cigars in prime condition. In the front of such a club there are large windows of plate glass, back of which the passer-by may catch a glimpse of a trim white mustache and a silk hat. ”

“ The Club is organized primarily to promote manly sport with the rifle among the large game of the wilderness, to encourage travel and exploration in little-known regions of our country, and to work for game and forest preservation by the State. ”

“ 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 want of something of this kind the young men in our cities and in our country villages seek recreation where they can find it. In cities, young men of the better class resort to clubs. This club life has eaten into the domestic life of our American families. The husband, the son and brother, are 175 never at home. Would it not be better if they could have some simple recreation which the whole family could enjoy together? In country villages young men meet at the tavern, or in the street, for want of a little company. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Generally we played there a little, except during the three large fairs of the year, which lasted each time about eight days.
"One autumn afternoon, towards the commencement of one of these fairs, I arrived at the Club in good time.
"There were many people in the Club whom I did not know: rich farmers who only came rarely to the town, or squires from the country who came to advertise their houses. ”

“ And the old sports, barring the least civilized like bull-baiting and cock-fighting, were kept up, and are kept up, and had their Clubhouses, which, in some cases, have survived. But, in my time, these sports had been limited to the few who had country houses in the right districts or the leisure for the gentlemanly pursuit of foxes and fishes, and their clubs were primitive compared to the palatial Country Clubs, whose luxury women now share with men. ”

“ SIGN OF THE BOLT-IN-TUN, FLEET STREET
175
CHAPTER XII.
IN CLUB- AND CARD-LAND. Club-land was a comparatively small country, peopled by a most exclusive race. There were twenty-five clubs in all,4 and, as many men had more than one club, and the average membership was less than a thousand, there were not more than 20,000 men altogether who belonged to clubs. There are now at least 120,000, with nearly a hundred clubs, to which almost any man might belong. ”