The Potiphar Papers | Page 4

and
hollow, and they drag themselves home at evening to catch a nap until
the ball begins, or to dine and smoke at their club, and be very manly
with punches and coarse stories; and then to rush into hot and glittering
rooms and seize very decolleté girls closely around the waist, and dash
with them around an area of stretched linen, saying in the panting
pauses, "How very hot it is!" "How very pretty Miss Podge looks!"
"What a good redowa!" "Are you going to Mrs. Potiphar's?"

Is this the assembled flower of manhood and womanhood, called "best
society," and to see which is so envied a privilege? If such are the
elements, can we be long in arriving at the present state, and necessary
future condition of parties?
"Vanity Fair," is peculiarly a picture of modern society. It aims at
English follies, but its mark is universal, as the madness is. It is called a
satire, but after much diligent reading, we cannot discover the satire. A
state of society not at all superior to that of "Vanity Fair" is not
unknown to our experience; and, unless truth-telling be satire; unless
the most tragically real portraiture be satire; unless scalding tears of
sorrow, and the bitter regret of a manly mind over the miserable
spectacle of artificiality, wasted powers, misdirected energies, and lost
opportunities, be satirical; we do not find satire in that sad story. The
reader closes it with a grief beyond tears. It leaves a vague
apprehension in the mind, as if we should suspect the air to be poisoned.
It suggests the terrible thought of the enfeebling of moral power, and
the deterioration of noble character, as a necessary consequence of
contact with "society." Every man looks suddenly and sharply around
him, and accosts himself and his neighbors, to ascertain if they are all
parties to this corruption. Sentimental youths and maidens, upon velvet
sofas, or in calf-bound libraries, resolve that it is an insult to human
nature--are sure that their velvet and calf-bound friends are not like the
dramatis personae of "Vanity Fair," and that the drama is therefore
hideous and unreal. They should remember, what they uniformly and
universally forget, that we are not invited, upon the rising of the curtain
to behold a cosmorama, or picture of the world, but a representation of
that part of it called Vanity Fair. What its just limits are-how far its
poisonous purlieus reach--how much of the world's air is tainted by it,
is a question which every thoughtful man will ask himself, with a
shudder, and look sadly around, to answer. If the sentimental objectors
rally again to the charge, and declare that, if we wish to improve the
world, its virtuous ambition must be piqued and stimulated by making
the shining heights of "the ideal" more radiant; we reply, that none shall
surpass us in honoring the men whose creations of beauty inspire and
instruct mankind. But if they benefit the world, it is no less true that a
vivid apprehension of the depths into which we are sunken or may sink,
nerves the soul's courage quite as much as the alluring mirage of the

happy heights we may attain. "To hold the mirror up to Nature," is still
the most potent method of shaming sin and strengthening virtue.
If "Vanity Fair" is a satire, what novel of society is not? Are "Vivian
Grey," and "Pelham," and the long catalogue of books illustrating
English, or the host of Balzacs, Sands, Sues, and Dumas, that paint
French society, any less satires? Nay, if you should catch any dandy in
Broadway, or in Pall-Mall, or upon the Boulevards, this very morning,
and write a coldly true history of his life and actions, his doings and
undoings, would it not be the most scathing and tremendous satire?--if
by satire you mean the consuming melancholy of the conviction, that
the life of that pendant to a moustache, is an insult to the possible life
of a man?
We have read of a hypocrisy so thorough, that it was surprised you
should think it hypocritical; and we have bitterly thought of the saying,
when hearing one mother say of another mother's child, that she had
"made a good match," because the girl was betrothed to a stupid boy
whose father was rich. The remark was the key of our social feeling.
Let us look at it a little, and, first of all, let the reader consider the
criticism, and not the critic. We may like very well, in our individual
capacity, to partake of the delicacies prepared by our hostess's chef, we
may not be adverse to _paté_, and myriad _objets de goût_, and if you
caught us in a corner at the next ball, putting away a fair share of