Worldly Ways and Byways | Page 6

some
sprightly maiden inquire as she reads these lines. My dear young lady,
if you ask the question, you have judged yourself and been found
wanting. But to satisfy you as far as I can, I will try and define it - not
by telling you what it is; that is beyond my power - but by negatives,

the only way in which subtle subjects can be approached.
A woman of charm is never flustered and never DISTRAITE. She talks
little, and rarely of herself, remembering that bores are persons who
insist on talking about themselves. She does not break the thread of a
conversation by irrelevant questions or confabulate in an undertone
with the servants. No one of her guests receives more of her attention
than another and none are neglected. She offers to each one who speaks
the homage of her entire attention. She never makes an effort to be
brilliant or entertain with her wit. She is far too clever for that. Neither
does she volunteer information nor converse about her troubles or her
ailments, nor wander off into details about people you do not know.
She is all things - to each man she likes, in the best sense of that phrase,
appreciating his qualities, stimulating him to better things.
- for his gayer hours She has a voice of gladness and a smile and
eloquence of beauty; and she glides Into his darker musings with a mild
and healing sympathy that steals away Their sharpness ere he is aware.
CHAPTER 2
- The Moth and the Star
THE truth of the saying that "it is always the unexpected that happens,"
receives in this country a confirmation from an unlooked- for quarter,
as does the fact of human nature being always, discouragingly, the
same in spite of varied surroundings. This sounds like a paradox, but is
an exceedingly simple statement easily proved.
That the great mass of Americans, drawn as they are from such varied
sources, should take any interest in the comings and goings or social
doings of a small set of wealthy and fashionable people, is certainly an
unexpected development. That to read of the amusements and home life
of a clique of people with whom they have little in common, whose
whole education and point of view are different from their own, and
whom they have rarely seen and never expect to meet, should afford the
average citizen any amusement seems little short of impossible.

One accepts as a natural sequence that abroad (where an hereditary
nobility have ruled for centuries, and accustomed the people to look up
to them as the visible embodiment of all that is splendid and
unattainable in life) such interest should exist. That the home-coming
of an English or French nobleman to his estates should excite the
enthusiasm of hundreds more or less dependent upon him for their
amusement or more material advantages; that his marriage to an heiress
- meaning to them the re-opening of a long-closed CHATEAU and the
beginning of a period of prosperity for the district - should excite his
neighbors is not to be wondered at.
It is well known that whole regions have been made prosperous by the
residence of a court, witness the wealth and trade brought into Scotland
by the Queen's preference for "the Land of Cakes," and the discontent
and poverty in Ireland from absenteeism and persistent avoidance of
that country by the court. But in this land, where every reason for
interesting one class in another seems lacking, that thousands of
well-to-do people (half the time not born in this hemisphere), should
delightedly devour columns of incorrect information about New York
dances and Lenox house-parties, winter cruises, or Newport coaching
parades, strikes the observer as the "unexpected" in its purest form.
That this interest exists is absolutely certain. During a trip in the West,
some seasons ago, I was dumbfounded to find that the members of a
certain New York set were familiarly spoken of by their first names,
and was assailed with all sorts of eager questions when it was
discovered that I knew them. A certain young lady, at that time a belle
in New York, was currently called SALLY, and a well-known
sportsman FRED, by thousands of people who had never seen either of
them. It seems impossible, does it not? Let us look a little closer into
the reason of this interest, and we shall find how simple is the apparent
paradox.
Perhaps in no country, in all the world, do the immense middle classes
lead such uninteresting lives, and have such limited resources at their
disposal for amusement or the passing of leisure hours.
Abroad the military bands play constantly in the public parks; the

museums and palaces are always open wherein to pass rainy Sunday