Kind hearts are more than coronets,And simple faith than Norman blood.
Kind hearts are more than coronets,And simple faith than Norman blood.
Kind hearts are more than coronets,And simple faith than Norman blood.
Kind hearts are more than coronets,
And simple faith than Norman blood.
In very few cases does immense wealth seem togo hand in hand with refinement, reserve and dignity. Millionaires are for the most part ill-mannered and illiterate, and singularly uninteresting in their conversation. A certain millionaire, occupying during some seasons one of the fine old Scottish Castles whose owners still take pride in the fact that its walls once sheltered “bonnie Prince Charlie,” can find little to do with himself and his “house-party,” but fill the grand old drawing-room with tobacco-smoke and whisky-fumes of an evening, and play “Bridge” for ruinous stakes on Sundays, of all days in the week. During other hours and days he goes out shooting, or drives a motor-car. Intellectually speaking, the man is less of a real personality than the great Newfoundland dog he owns. But measured by gold he is a person of enormous importance—a human El Dorado. And his banking-account is the latchkey with which he opens the houses of the great and intrudes his coarse presence through the doors of royal palaces; whereas if by some capricious stroke of ill-luck he had not a penny left in the world, those same doors would be shut in his face with a bang.
The vulgarity of wealth is daily and hourly so broadly evidenced and apparent, that one can well credit a strange rumour prevalent in certain highly exclusive circles, far removed from the “swagger set,” to the effect that with one more turn of blind Fortune’s wheel, the grace of Poverty will become a rare social distinction. The Poor Gentleman, it is said, will be eagerly sought after, and to be seen in his company will entitle one to respect. The man of money will stand outside the ring of this Society,which is in process of formation for the revival of the Art of Intelligent Conversation and the Cultivation of Good Manners. Ladies who dress with a becoming simplicity, and who are not liable to the accusation of walking about with clothes unpaid for, will be eligible for membership,—and young men who are not ashamed to emphatically decline playing cards on Sunday will be equally welcome in the select coterie. Limited means will be considered more of a recommendation than a drawback, and visits will be interchanged among the members on the lines of unaffected hospitality, offered with unassuming friendship and sincerity. Kindness towards each other, punctilious attention to the smallest courtesies of life, unfailing chivalry towards women, and honour to men, will be the prevailing “rules” of the community, and every attempt at “show,” either in manners or entertainment, will be rigorously forbidden and excluded. The aim of the Society will be to prove the truth of the adage that “Manners makyth the man,” as opposed to the modern reading, “Money makyth the nobleman.” Bearing in mind that the greatest reformers and teachers of the world were seldom destitute of the grace of Poverty, it will be deemed good and necessary to make a stand for this ancient and becoming Virtue, which as a learned writer says, “doth sit on a wise man more becomingly than royal robes on a king.” Many who entertain this view are prepared to unite their forces in making well-born and well-bred Poverty the fashion. For in such a scheme, singular as it may appear, there is just a faint chance of putting up a barrier against boorish Plutocracy (which is a moreunwieldy and offensive power than Democracy), and also of asserting the existence of grander national qualities than greed, avarice, and self-indulgence, which humours, if allowed to generate and grow in the minds of a people, result in the ravaging sickness of such a pestilence of evil as cannot be easily stayed or remedied. There has been enough, and too much of the Idolatry of Money-bags—it is time the fever of such insanity should abate and cool down. To conclude with another admirable quotation from Mr. Lecky: “Of colossal fortunes only a very small fraction can be truly said to minister to the personal enjoyment of the owner. The disproportion in the world between pleasure and cost is indeed almost ludicrous. The two or three shillings that gave us our first Shakespeare would go but a small way towards providing one of the perhaps untasted dishes on the dessert table. The choicest masterpieces of the human mind—the works of human genius that through the long course of centuries have done most to ennoble, console, brighten, and direct the lives of men, might all be purchased—I do not say by the cost of a lady’s necklace, but by that of one or two of the little stones of which it is composed. Compare the relish with which the tired pedestrian eats his bread and cheese with the appetites with which men sit down to some stately banquet; compare the level of spirits at the village dance with that of the great city ball whose lavish splendour fills the society papers with admiration; compare the charms of conversation in the college common room with the weary faces that may be often seen around the millionaire’s dinner table, andwe may gain a good lesson of the vanity of riches.”
And, we may add, of the vulgarity of those who advertise their wealth by ostentation, as well as of those who honour Purses more than Principles.
Why is the American woman so popular in English society? Why is her charmingly assertive personality acknowledged everywhere? Why is she received by knights and earls and belted churls with such overpowering enthusiasm? Surely something subtle, elusive and mysterious, clings to her particular form, nature and identity, for more often than not, the stolid Britisher, while falling at her feet and metaphorically kissing the hem of her garment, wonders vaguely how it is that she manages to make such a fool of him! To which, she might reply, on demand, that if he were not a fool already, she would not find her task so easy! For the American woman is, above all women in the world, clever—or let us say “brainy” to an almost incredible height of brainyness. She is “all there.” She can take the measure of a man in about ten minutes and classify him as though he were a botanical specimen. She realizes all his limitations, his “notions,” and his special and particular fads,—and she has the uncommonly good sense not to expect much of him. She would not “take any” on the lily-maid of Astolat, the fair Elaine, who spent her time in polishing the shield of Lancelot, and who finally died of love for that most immoralbut fascinating Knight of the Round Table. No, she wouldn’t polish a shield, you bet! She would make Lancelot polish it himself for all he was worth, and polish her own dear little boots and shoes for her into the bargain. That is one of her secrets—masterfulness—or, let us say queenliness, which sounds better. The Lord of creation can do nothing in the way of orderingherabout,—because, as the Lady of creation she expects to orderhimabout,—and she does! She expects to be worked for, worshipped and generally attended to,—and she gets her way. What she wants, she will have,—though “Companies” smash, and mighty Combines split into infinite nothingness; and more than any tamer of wild forest animals she makes all her male lions and bears dance at her bidding.
Perhaps the chief note in the ever-ascending scale of her innumerable attractions is her intense vitality. The mixed blood of many intelligent races courses through her delicate veins and gives a joyous lightness to the bounding of her heart and the swift grace of her step. She is full of energy as well as charm. If she sets out to enjoy herself, she enjoys herself thoroughly. She talks and laughs freely. She is not a mere well-dressed automaton like the greater majority of upper-class British dames. She is under the impression,—(a perfectly correct one) that tongues were given to converse with, and that lips, especially pretty ones, were made to smile with. She is, taken at her best, eminently good-natured, and refreshingly free from the jaundiced spite against others of her own sex which savours the afternoon chitter-chatter of nine out of every ten English spinsters and matronstaken together in conclave. She would, on the whole, rather say a kind thing than a cruel one. Perhaps this is because she is herself always so triumphant in her social career,—because she is too certain of her own power to feel “the pangs of unrequited love,” or to allow herself to be stung by the “green-eyed monster,” jealousy. Her car is always rolling over roses,—there is always a British title going a-begging,—always some decayed or degenerate or semi-drunken peer, whose fortunes are on the verge of black ruin, ready and willing to devour, monster-like, the holocaust of an American virgin, provided bags of bullion are flung, with her, into his capacious maw. Though certainly one should look upon the frequent marriages of American heiresses with effete British nobles, as the carrying out of a wise and timely dispensation of Providence. New blood—fresh sap, is sorely needed to invigorate the grand old tree of the British aristocracy, which has of late been looking sadly as though dry rot were setting in,—as though the woodlice were at work in its heart, and the rats burrowing at its root. But, by the importation of a few clean-minded, sweet-souled American women, some of the most decayed places in the venerable stem have been purged and purified,—the sap has risen, and new boughs and buds of promise are sprouting. And it is full time that this should be. For we have had to look with shame and regret upon many of our English lords caught in gambling dens,—and shown up in dishonourable bankruptcies;—some of them have disported themselves upon the “variety” stage, clad in women’s petticoats and singing comic songsfor a fee,—others have “hired themselves out” as dummy figures of attraction at evening parties, accepting five guineas for each appearance,—and they have become painfully familiar objects in the Divorce Court, where the stories of their most unsavoury manners and customs, as detailed in the press, have offered singular instruction and example to those “lower” classes whom they are supposed to more or less influence. A return to the old motto of “noblesse oblige” would not be objectionable; a re-adopting of oldun-blemished scutcheons of honour would be appreciated, even by the so-called “vulgar,”—and a great noble who is at the same time a great man, would in this present day, be accepted by all classes with an universal feeling of grateful surprise and admiration.
But,revenons à nos moutons,—the social popularity of the American woman in English society. That she is popular is an admitted and incontestable fact. She competes with the native British female product at every turn,—in her dress, in her ways, in her irresistible vivacity, and above all in her intelligence. When she knows things, she lets people know that she knows things. She cannot sit with her hands before her in stodgy silence, allowing other folks to talk. That is an English habit. No doubt the English girl or woman knows quite as much as her American sister, but she has an unhappy knack of assuming to be a fool. She says little, and that little not to much purpose,—she looks less,—it is dimly understood that she plays hockey, tennis and golf, and has large feet. She is an athletic Enigma. I write this, of course, solely concerning those British women, young,middle-aged and elderly, who make “sport” and out-door exercise the chief aim and end of existence. But I yield to none in my love and admiration for the real, genuine,unmodernised English maiden, at her gentlest and best,—she is the rosebud of the world. And I tender devout reverence and affection to theun-fashionable, single-hearted, dear, loving and ever-beloved English wife and mother—she is the rose in all its full-blown glory. Unfortunately, however, these English rosebuds and roses are seldom met with in the sweltering, scrambling crowd called “society.” They dwell in quiet country-places where the lovely influences of their modest and retiring lives are felt but never seen. Society likes to be seen rather than felt. There is all the difference. And in that particular section of it whose aim is seeing to be seen, and seen to be seeing, the American woman is as an oasis in the desert. She also wants to be seen,—but she expresses that desire so naïvely, and often so bewitchingly, that it is a satisfaction to every one to grant her request. She also would see,—and her eyes are so bright and roving and restless, that Mother Britannia is perforce compelled to smile indulgently, and to open all her social picture-books for the pleasure of the spoilt child of eternal Mayflower pedigree. It has to be said and frankly admitted too, that much of the popularity attending an American girl when she first comes over to London for a “season” is due to an idea which the stolid Britisher gets into his head, namely, that she has, shemusthave, Money. The American girl and Money are twins, according to the stolid Britisher’s belief. And when the stolid Britisher fixessomething—anything—into the passively-resisting matter composing his brain, it would take Leviathan, with, not one, but several hooks, tounfix it. And thus it often happens that the sight of a charmingly dressed, graceful, generally “smart” American girl attracts the stolid Britisher in the first place because he says to himself—“Money!” He knows all the incomes of all the best families in his own country,—and none of them are big enough to suit him. But the American girl arrives as more or less of a financial mystery. She may have thousands,—she may have millions,—he can never be quite sure. And he does all he can to ingratiate himself with her and give her a good time “on spec.” to begin with, while he makes cautious and diplomatic enquiries. If his hopes rest on a firm basis, his attentions are redoubled—if, on the contrary, they are built on shifting sand, he gradually diminishes his ardour and like a “wilting flower” fades and “fizzles” away.
I am here reminded of a certain Earl, renowned in the political and social world, who, when he was a young man, went over on a visit to America and there fell, or feigned to fall, deeply in love with a very sweet, very beautiful, very gentle and lovable American girl. In a brief while he became engaged to her. The engagement was made public—the wedding day was almost fixed. The girl’s father was extremely wealthy, and she was the only child and sole heiress. But an unfortunate failure,—a gigantic collapse in the money market, made havoc of the father’s fortunes, and as soon as his ruin was declared beyond a doubt, the noble Earl, without much hesitation or ado, broke off his engagement,and rapidly decamped from the States back to his own country, where, as all the world knows, he did very well for himself. Strange to say, however, the girl whom he had thus brutally forsaken for no fault of her own, had loved him with all the romantic and trusting tenderness of first love, and the heartless blow inflicted upon her by his noble and honourable lordship was one from which she never recovered. The Noble and Honourable has, I repeat, done very well for himself, though it is rumoured that he sleeps badly, and that he has occasionally been heard muttering after the fashion of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark,—“Oh God, I could be bounded in a nutshell and count myself a king of infinite space were it not that I have bad dreams!”
Marriage, however, is by no means the only, or even the chief resource in life of the American woman. She evidently looks with a certain favour on the holy estate of matrimony and is quite willing to become an excellent wife and mother if the lines of her destiny run that way, but if they should happen to branch out in another direction, she wastes no time in useless pining. She is too vital, too capable, too intelligent and energetic altogether to play therôleof an interesting martyr to male neglect. She will teach, or she will lecture,—she will sing, or she will act,—she will take her degrees in medicine and surgery,—she will practise for the Bar,—she will write books, and the days are fast approaching when she will become a high priestess of the Church, and will preach to the lost sheep of Israel as well as to the equally lost ones of New York or Chicago;—she will be a “beauty doctor,” a “physical culture” woman, a “medium,” a stock-broker, apalmist, a florist, a house-decorator, a dealer in lace and old curiosities,—ay! she will even become a tram-car conductor if necessity compels and the situation is open to her,—and she will manage a cattle ranch as easily as a household, should opportunity arise. Marriage is but one link in the long chain of her general efficiency, and like Cleopatra, “age cannot wither her, nor custom stale Her infinite variety.” A curious fact and one worth noting is, that we seldom or never hear Americans use the ill-bred expression “old maid” when alluding to such of their feminine relatives or friends who may happen to remain unmarried. They know too well that these confirmed and settled spinsters are as capable and as well to the front in the rush of life as the wedded wives, if not more so,—they know that among these unmarried feminine forces they have to reckon with some of the cleverest heads of the day, to whom no opprobrious term of contempt dare be applied,—women who are editors and proprietors of great newspapers,—women who manage famous schools and colleges,—women who, being left with large fortunes, dispense the same in magnificently organized butunadvertised charities,—women who do so command by their unassisted influence certain social movements and events, that if indeed theywereto marry, something like confusion and catastrophe might ensue among the circles they control by the introduction of a new and possibly undesirable element. “Old maid,” may apply to the unfortunate female who has passed all the days of her youth in talking about men and in failing to catch so much as one of the wandering tribe, and who, on arriving at forty years,meekly retires to the chimney corner with shawl over her shoulders and some useful knitting,—but it carries neither meaning nor application to the brisk, brilliant American spinster who at fifty keeps her trim svelte figure, dresses well, goes here, there and everywhere, and sheds her beaming smile with good-natured tolerance, and perchance something of gratitude as well, on the men she has escaped from. Life does not run only in one channel for the American Woman. She does not “make tracks” solely from the cradle to the altar, from the altar to the grave. She realizes that there is more fun to be got out of being born than just this little old measure meted out to her by the barbaric males of earliest barbaric periods, when women were yoked to the plough with cattle. And it is the innate consciousness of her own power and intelligent ability that gives her the dominating charm,—the magnetic spell under which the stolid Britisher falls more or less stricken, stupefied and inert. He is never a great talker; she is. Her flow of conversation bewilders him. She knows so much too—she chatters of Shakespeare, Byron, Shelley, Keats—and he thinks he has heard of these people somewhere before. He listens dumbly. Sometimes he scratches his head,—occasionally he feels his moustache, if he has one. When she laughs, he smiles slowly and dubiously. He hopes she is not laughing athim. He feels—he feels—dontcherknow—that she is “ripping.” He couldn’t tell you what he means by “ripping” to save his life. But painfully accustomed as he is to the dull and listless conversation of the British materfamilias, and to the half-hoydenish conduct of the Britishtom-boy girl whowillinsist on playing golf and hockey with him in order not to lose him out of her sight, he is altogether refreshed and relieved when the American Woman dawns upon his cloudy horizon, and instead of waiting uponhim, commands him to wait uponher, with one dazzling look of her bright, audacious eye. The American Woman is not such a fool as to go play hockey with him at all times and in all weathers, thereby allowing him to take the unchecked measure of her ankles. She is too clever to do anything that might possibly show her in an unlovely or ungraceful light. She takes care to keep her hands soft and small and white, that they may be duly caressable,—and makes the best and prettiest of herself on all and every occasion. And that she has succeeded in taking English society by storm is no matter of surprise. English society, unmixed with any foreign element, is frequently said to be the dullest in the world. It is an entertainment where no one is entertained. A civil apathy wraps each man and woman in its fibrous husk, and sets them separately apart behind barricades of the most idiotic conventionality. The American Woman is the only being that can break down these barricades and tear the husk to shreds. No wonder she is popular! The secret of her success is in her own personal charm and vivacious intelligence,—in her light scorn of stupid ceremonies,—in the frank geniality of her disposition (when she can manage to keep it unspoilt by contact with the reserved hypocrisy of the “Smart Set,”) and the delightful spontaneity of her thoughts which find such ready expression in equally spontaneous speech. Altogether the American Woman is avaluable importation into Great Britain. She is an incarnation of the Present, and an embryo of the Future. She is a gifted daughter of the British race, holding within her bright, vital, ambitious identity many of the greater possibilities of Britain. And to the question “Why is she popular?” the answer is simple—“Because she deserves to be!”
Everything in America is colossal, stupendous and pre-eminent,—it follows, therefore, that the American “bounder” is the most colossal, stupendous and pre-eminent bounder in existence. None of his tribe can match him in “brass,”—none of his European forbears or connections can equal him in brag. He is an inflated bladder of man, swollen out well-nigh to bursting with the wind of the Yankee Doodle Eagle’s wing. His aim in life appears to be to disgrace his country by his manners, his morals and his conversation. He arrives in Europe with the air of laying Europe under a personal debt of obligation to Providence for having kindly permitted him to be born. As befits a son of the goddess Liberty, he sets his proud foot on the “worn out” soil of the Old World and prances there, even as the “wild ass” mentioned in Holy Writ. As a citizen of the greatest Republic over which any starred or striped flag ever flew, he extends his gracious patronage to tottering monarchies, and allows it to be understood that he tolerates with an amused compassion that poor, drivelling, aged and senile institution known as the Aristocracy. He alludes to “my friend the Duke,” casually, as one might speak of a blind beggar. He throws in a remark quiteunexpectedly at times concerning “Betty—you’veheard of her surely? Countess Betty—the Countess of Hockyfield—oh yes!—you English snobs rather ‘kotow’ to her, butIcall her Betty!—she likes it!” He may frequently be found in residence on the fourth floor back of a swagger hotel, occupying a “bed-sitting room” littered with guide books, “yellow” journalism, and dubious French novels, with an impressionist sketch of the newest Paris “danseuse” in her most suggestive want of attire set conspicuously forward for inspection. If chance visitors happen to notice flowers on his table, he at once seethes into a simmering scum of self-adulation. “Charming, are they not!” he says—“So sweet! So dear of the Duchess to send them!—she knows how fond I am of Malmaisons!—did you notice that Malmaison?—the Duchess gathered it for me herself—it is from one of the Sandringham stock. Of course you know the carnation houses at Sandringham? Alex. delights in Malmaisons!” And when guileless strangers gasp and blink as they realize that it is England’s gracious Queen-Consort who is being spoken of as “Alex.” in the company of the soiled literature and the portrait of the Paris “danseuse” the Bounder is delighted. He feels he has made a point. He chortles cheerfully on—“What a rotten old country this is after all, eh? Just crawling alive with snobs! Everyone’s on their knees to a title, and the sight of a lord seems to give the average Britisher a fit. Now look at me! I don’t care a cent about your dukes and earls. Why should I? I’m always with ’em—fact is, they can’t bear to have me out of their sight!Lady Belinda Boomall—second daughter of the Duke of Borrowdom,—she’s just mad on me! She thinks I’ve got money, and I let her! It’s real fun! And as to the Marchioness Golfhouse—she’s up to some gamesItell you!Sheknows a thing or two! My word!” Here he gives vent to a sound suggestive of something between a sneeze and a snigger which is his own particular way of rendering the laugh satirical. “I always get on with your blue-blooded girls!”—he proceeds; “I guess they’re pretty tired of their own men hulking round! They take to an Amurrican as ducks take to water. See all those cards?”—pointing in a casual way to half a dozen or so of pasteboard slips littered on the mantelshelf, among which the discerning observer might certainly see one or two tradesmen’s advertisements—“They just shower ’em on me! I’ve got an ‘at home’ to-night and a ball afterwards—to-morrow I breakfast at Marlborough House;—then lunch with Lady Adelaide Sparkler,—she drives me in the Park afterwards—and in the evening I dine at St. James’ Palace and go to the Opera with the Rothschilds. It’s always like that with me! I never have a moment to myself. All these people want me. Lady Adelaide Sparkler declares she cannot possibly do without me! I ought to have been at Stafford House this afternoon—great show on there—but I can’t be bothered!—the Duchess is just too trying for words sometimes! Of course it’s all a question of connection;—they know who I am and all about my ancestors, and that makes ’em so anxious to have me. You know who my ancestors were?”
Now when the American Bounder puts this question, he ought to receive a blunt answer. Perhaps if Britishers were as rude as they are sometimes reported to be, one of them would give such an answer straight. He would say “No, I do not; but I expect you sprang from a convict root of humanity thrown out as bad rubbish from an over-populated prison and cast by chance into American soil beside an equally rank native Indian weed—and that in your present bad form and general condition, you are the expressive result of that disastrous combination.” But, as a rule, even the most truculent Britisher’s natural pluck is so paralysed by the American Bounder’s amazing capacity for lying, that in nine cases out of ten, he merely murmurs an inarticulate negative. Whereat the Bounder at once proceeds to enlighten him—“I am the direct descendant of the Scroobys of Scrooby in Yorkshire,”—he resumes—“Myname’s not Scrooby—no!—but that has nothing to do with it. The families got mixed. Scrooby of Scrooby went over to Holland in 1607 and joined the Pilgrim Fathers. He was quite a boy, but Elder Brewster took care of him! He held the Bible when Brewster first fell upon his knees and thanked God. So you see I really come from Yorkshire. Real old Yorkshire ham ‘cured’ into an Amurrican!”
After this, there is nothing more to be said. Questions of course might be asked as to how the “Yorkshire ham” not being “Scrooby” now, ever started from “Scrooby” in the past, only it is not worth while. It never is worth while to try and certify an American Bounder’s claim tobeing sprung from a dead and gone family of English gentlemen. Regard for the dead and gone English gentlemen should save them from this affront to their honourable dust.
Perhaps the most amazing thing about the American Bounder after his free and easy familiarities with “Bertie” (the King) “Alex.” (the Queen) and “Georgie and May” (the Prince and Princess of Wales) is his overweening, self-satisfied, complacent and arrogant ignorance. The most blatant little local tradesman who, through well-meaning Parliamentary short-sightedness in educational schemes, becomes a “governor” of a Technical School in the provinces, is never so blatantly ignorant as he. He talks of everything and knows nothing. He assumes to have the last word in science, art and literature. He will tell you he is “great chums” with Marconi and Edison, and that these famous discoverers and inventors always lay their heads on his bosom and tell him their dearest confidences. He knows just what is going to be done by everybody with everything. He is friends with the Drama too. Beerbohm Tree rings him up on the telephone at all manner of strange hours, thirsting for his advice on certain “scenes” and “effects.” He is—to use his own words—“doing a great thing” for Tree! Sarah Bernhardt is his very dearest of dear ones! She has fallen into his arms, coming off the stage at the side wings, exhausted, and exclaiming—“Toi, mon cher! Enfin! Maintenant, je respire!” Madame Réjane is always at home to him. In fact all Paris hails him with a joy too deep for tears. He would not be a true “Amurrican”ifhedid not love Paris, and if Paris did not lovehim.
But though he is completely “at one,” according to his own statement, with most of the celebrated personages of the day, if not all, he cannot tell you the most commonly known facts about them to save his life. And though—again according to his own statement—he has read every book ever published, visited every picture gallery, “salon” and theatre in Europe, he cannot pronounce the name of one single foreign author or artist correctly. His English is bad enough, but his French is worse. He seldom makes excursions into the Italian language—“Igh—talian” as he calls it, but it is quite enough for the merest beginner in the Tuscan tongue to hear him say “gondòla” to take the measure of his capacity. “Gòndola” is a word so easily learned and so often used in Italian, that one might think any child could master its pronunciation from twice hearing it—but the American Bounder makes the whole tour of Italy without losing a scrap of his own special nasal lingo, and returns in triumph to talk of the “gondòla” and the “bella ràgg-azza” (instead of ragàzza) till one’s ears almost ache with the hideous infliction of his abominable accent. In Switzerland he is always alluding to “Mount Blank”—the “CantoneGry-son”—“Noo-shatell”—and the “Mountain Vert”—and in Great Britain he has been heard to speak of LocheKay-trine and BenNeevis, as well as of Conisston and Cornwàll. But it is quite “correct” he will tell you—it is only the English people who do not know how to talk English. The actual, true, pure pronunciation of the Englishlanguage went over to the States with the Scroobys of Scrooby, and he their descendant and Bounder, has preserved it intact. Even Shakespeare’s river Avon becomes metamorphosed under the roll of his atrocious tongue. He will not pronounce it with the English A, as in the word “bay,”—he calls it A’von, as the “a” is sounded in the wordavarice—so that the soft poetic name of the classic stream appears to have been bitten off by him and swallowed like a pop-corn. But it would be of no use to argue with him on this or on any other point, because he is always right. No real American Bounder was ever wrong.
One cannot but observe what a close acquaintance the Bounder has with Debrett and various “County” Directories. His study of these volumes is almost as profound as that of Mr. Balfour must have been when writing “The Foundations of Belief.” Between Debrett and Baedeker he manages to elicit a certain useful stock of surface information which he imparts in a kind of cheap toy-cracker fashion to various persons, who, politely listening, wonder why he appears to think that they are not aware of facts familiar to them from their childhood. His modes of appearing “to know, you know!” are exceedingly simple. For example, suppose him to be asked to join a “house-party” in Suffolk. He straightway studies the “County Directory” of that quarter of England, and looks up the principal persons mentioned therein in various other books of handy reference. When, in due course, he arrives at the house to which he has been invited, he manages to faintly surprise uninitiated persons by his (apparently) familiaracquaintance with the pedigree and history of this or that “county” magnate, and his (apparently) intimate knowledge of such and such celebrated paintings and “objets d’art” as adorn the various historical mansions in the district—knowledge for which he is merely indebted to Baedeker. He is as loquacious as a village washerwoman. He will relate any number of scandalous stories in connection with the several families of whose ways and doings he pretends to have such close and particular information—and should any listener interrupt him with a mild “Pardon me!—but, having resided in this neighbourhood all my life I venture to think you must be mistaken”;—he merely smiles blandly at such a display of “native” ignorance. “Lived here all your life and not know that!” he exclaims—“My word! It takes an Amurrican to teach you what’s going on in your own country!”
Offensive as is this more or less ordinary type of American Bounder who makes his “home in Yew-rope” on fourth floors of fashionable hotels, a still worse and more offensive specimen is found in the Starred-and-Striped Bounding Millionaire. This individual—who has frequently attained to a plethora of cash through one of two reprehensible ways—either by “sweating” labour, or by fooling shareholders in “trust” companies,—comes to Great Britain with the fixed impression that everything in the “darned old place” can be bought for money. Unfortunately he is often right. The British—originally and by nature proud, reserved, and almost savagely tenacious of their freedom and independence—have been bitten bythe Transatlantic madness of mere Greed, and their blood has been temporarily poisoned by infection. But one may hope and believe that it is only a passing malady, and that the old healthy life will re-invest the veins of the nation all the more strongly for partial sickness and relapse. In the meantime it occasionally happens that the “free” Briton bows his head like a whipped mongrel cur to the bulging Bank-Account of the American Millionaire-Bounder. And the American Millionaire-Bounder plants his flat foot on the so foolishly bent pate and walks over it with a commercial chuckle. “You talk of your ‘Noblesse oblige,’ your honour, your old historic tradition and aristocratic Order!” he says, sneeringly—“Why there isn’t a man alive in Britain that I couldn’t buy, principles and all, for fifty thousand pounds!”
This kind of vaunt at Britain’s expense is common to the American Millionaire-Bounder—and whether it arises out of his conscious experience of the British, or his braggart conceit, must be left to others to query or determine. Certain it is that hedoesbuy a good deal, and that the owners of such things as he wants seem always ready to sell. Famous estates are knocked down to him—manuscripts and pictures which should be the preciously guarded property of the nation, are easily purchased by him,—and, laughing in his sleeve at the purblind apathy of the British Government, which calmly looks on while he pockets such relics of national greatness as unborn generations will vainly and indignantly ask for,—he congratulates himself on possessing, as he says, “the only few things the old country has got left worth having.” One can but lookgloomily through the “Calendar of Shakespearean Rarities,” collected by Halliwell Phillips, which were offered to the wealthy city of Birmingham for £7,000, and reflect that this same wealthy city disgraced itself by refusing to purchase the collection and by allowing everything to be bought and carried away from England by “an American” in 1897. We do not say this American was a “Bounder”—nevertheless, if he had been a real lover of Shakespeare’s memory, rather than of himself, he would have bought these relics for Shakespeare’s native country and presented them for Shakespeare’s sake to Shakespeare’s native people, who are not, as a People, to blame for the parsimony of their Governments. They pay taxes enough in all conscience, and at least they deserve that what few relics remain of their Greatest Man should be saved and ensured to them.
But perhaps the American Millionaire-Bounder is at his best when he has bought an English newspaper and is running it in London. Then he feels as if he were running the Imperial Government itself—nay, almost the Monarchy. He imagines that he has his finger on the very pulse of Time. He hugs himself in the consciousness that the British people,—that large majority of them who are not behind the scenes—buy his paper, believing it to be a British paper, not a journal of “Amurrican” opinion, that is, opinion as ordered and paid for by one “Amurrican.” He knows pretty well in his own mind that if they understood that such was the actual arrangement, they would save their pence. Unfortunately the great drawback of the “man in the street” who buys newspapers, isthat he has no time to enquire as to the way in which the journals he confides in are “run.” If he knew that the particular view taken of the political situation in a certain journal, was merely the political vieworderedto be taken by one “Amurrican”—naturally he would not pin his simple faith upon it. Perhaps the Man in the Street will some day wake up to the realization that in many cases, (though not all) with respect to journalism, he only exists to be “gulled.”
Like all good and bad things, the American Bounder, whether millionaire or only shabby-genteel, has a certain height beyond which he can no further go—a point where he culminates in a blaze of ultra Bounder-ism. This brilliant apotheosis is triumphantly reached in the Female of his species. The American Female Bounder is the quintessence of vulgarity, and in every way makes herself so objectionable even to her own people and country that Americans themselves view her departure for “Yew-rope” with perfect equanimity, and hope she will never come back. Once in what she calls “the old country” she talks all day long through her quivering nose of “Lady This” and “Countess That.” One of this class I recall now as I write, who spoke openly of a “Mrs. Countess So-and-So”—and utterly declined to be instructed in any other form of address. She was not content to trace her lineage to such humble folk as the “Scroobys of Scrooby”—no indeed, not she! Kings wereherancestors; her “family tree” sprouted from Richard the Lion-Heart, according to her own bombastic assertion, and she, with her loud twanging voice, odious mannersand insufferable impertinence, was “genuine stock” of royallest origin. Of course it is quite possible that, as in horticulture, a once nobly cultivated human plant may, if left without wholesome or fostering influences, degenerate into a weed—but that so rank a weed as the American Female Bounder should be the dire result of the Conqueror’s blood is open to honest doubt. She generally has a “mission” to reform something or somebody,—she is very often a “Christian science” woman, or a theosophist. Sometimes she “takes up” Art as though it were a dustpan, and sweeps into it under her “patronage” certain dusty and doubtful literary and musical aspirants who want a “hearing” for their efforts. Fortunately for the world, a “hearing” under the gracious auspices of the American Female Bounder means a silence everywhere else. She is fond of “frocks and frills”—and wears an enormous quantity of jewels, “stones” as she calls them. She “pushes” herself in every possible social direction, and wherever she sees she is not wanted, there, more particularly than elsewhere, she contrives to force an entry. She embraces the game of “Bridge” with passionate eagerness because she sees that by keeping open house, with card-tables always ready, she can attract the loafing “great ones of the earth,” and possibly persuade a “Mrs. Countess” to befriend her. If she is fairly wealthy, she can generally manage to do this. All Mrs. Countesses have not “that repose which stamps the caste of Vere de Vere.” Some of them find the American Female Bounder useful—and precisely in the manner she offers herself, even so they take her.And thus it often happens that one frequently meets her where she has no business to be. One is not surprised to find her at Court, or in the Royal enclosure at Ascot, because so many of her British sisters in the Bounder line are in these places, ready to give her a helping hand—but oneisoccasionally startled and in a manner sorry to discover her making herself at home among certain “exclusive” people who are chiefly distinguished for their good-breeding, culture and refinement. In one thing, however, we can take much comfort, and this is, that whatever the American Bounder, Male or Female, may purchase or otherwise insidiously obtain in the Old World, neither he nor she can ever secure respect. Driven to bay as the Britisher may be by consummate and pertinacious lying, he can and does withhold from the liars his honest esteem. He may sell a valuable manuscript or picture to a “bounding” Yankee, out of sheer necessitous circumstance, but he will never be “friends” with the purchaser. He will call him “bounder” to the crack of doom, and Doomsday itself will not alter that impression of him.
It may be, and it is I think, taken for granted that America itself is very glad to get rid of its “bounders.” It regards them with as much shame and distress as we feel when we see certain specimens of “travelling English” disporting themselves upon the Continent in the ’Arry and Jemima way. We always fervently hope that our Continental neighbours will not take these extraordinary roughs as bona-fide examples of the British people, and in the same way America trusts all the nations of Europe not to accept their “Bounders” asexamples of the real pith and power of the United States. The American People are too great, too broad-minded, sane, and thorough, not to wish to shake off theseaphideson their rose of life. They watch them “clearing out” for “Yew-rope” with perfect satisfaction. Said a charming American woman to me the other day—“What a pity it is that English peoplewillkeep on receiving Americans here who would not be tolerated for a moment in New York or Boston society! It surprises us very greatly. Sometimes indeed we cannot help laughing to see the names of women figuring among your ‘haute noblesse’ who would never get inside a decent house anywhere in the States. But more often we are sorry that your social ‘leaders’ are so easily taken in!”
Here indeed is the sum total of the matter. If Great Britain—and other countries in Europe—but Great Britain especially—did not “receive” and encourage the American Bounder and Bounderess, these objectionable creatures would never be known or heard of. Therefore it is our fault that they exist. Were it not for our short-sighted foolishness, and our proneness to believe that every “Amurrican” with money must be worth knowing, we should be better able to sort the sheep from the goats. We should add to the pleasures of our social life and intercourse an agreeable knowledge of the real American ladies, the real American gentlemen; and though these are seldom seen over here, for the very good reason that they are valued and wanted in their own country, they could at least be certain, when they did come, of being received at their proper valuation, and notset to herd with the “Bounders” of their country, whom their country rejects. For one may presume that there is some cogent reason why an American citizen of the Greatest Republic in the world, should elect to desert his native land and “settle down” under “rotten old monarchies.” People do not leave the home of their birth for ever unless they find it impossible to live there for causes best known to themselves. The poor are often compelled to emigrate, we know, in the hope to find employment and food in other countries—but when the rich “slope off” from the very centres where they have made their capital, one may be permitted to doubt the purity of their intentions. Anyway, surrounded as we are to-day socially by American Bounders of every description,—American Bounders who think themselves as good as any one else “and a darned sight better”—American Bounders who declare that they are the “real old British race renewed,”—American Bounders who “run” British journals of “literary opinion” and so forth,—American Bounders who thrust themselves into the company of unhappy kings and queens,—those crowned slaves who in such earthquaking days as these have to be more than common careful “not to offend,”—American Bounders who themselves claim kinship with the blood royal,—the one straight and simple fact remains—namely, that all the best Americans still live in America!
Among the numerous fascinating and delightful members of the male sex whom I have the honour to count as friends, there is one very handsome and devotedly attentive gentleman of four years old, who is particularly fond of reciting to me in private the following striking poem on the Fall of Man.