would do every bit as well.Indeed, I sometimes wonder why people go to the trouble and expense of invitation cards at all.Asandwich-man outside the door would answer the purpose.'Lady Tompkins, At Home, this afternoon from three to seven; Tea and Music.Ladies and Gentlemen admitted on presentation of visiting card.Afternoon dress indispensable.' The crowd is the thing wanted; as for the items, well, tell me, what is the difference, from the Society point of view, between one man in a black frock-coat and another?
"I remember being once invited to a party at a house in Lancaster Gate.I had met the woman at a picnic.In the same green frock and parasol I might have recognized her the next time I saw her.In any other clothes I did not expect to.My cabman took me to the house opposite, where they were also giving a party.It made no difference to any of us.The hostess--I never learnt her name--said it was very good of me to come, and then shunted me off on to a Colonial Premier (I did not catch his name, and he did not catch mine, which was not extraordinary, seeing that my hostess did not know it) who, she whispered to me, had come over, from wherever it was (she did not seem to be very sure) principally to make my acquaintance.Half through the evening, and by accident, Idiscovered my mistake, but judged it too late to say anything then.
I met a couple of people I knew, had a little supper with them, and came away.The next afternoon I met my right hostess--the lady who should have been my hostess.She thanked me effusively for having sacrificed the previous evening to her and her friends; she said she knew how seldom I went out: that made her feel my kindness all the more.She told me that the Brazilian Minister's wife had told her that I was the cleverest man she had ever met.I often think Ishould like to meet that man, whoever he may be, and thank him.
"But perhaps the butler does pronounce my name rightly, and perhaps my hostess actually does recognize me.She smiles, and says she was so afraid I was not coming.She implies that all the other guests are but as a feather in her scales of joy compared with myself.Ismile in return, wondering to myself how I look when I do smile.Ihave never had the courage to face my own smile in the looking-glass.I notice the Society smile of other men, and it is not reassuring.I murmur something about my not having been likely to forget this evening; in my turn, seeking to imply that I have been looking forward to it for weeks.A few men shine at this sort of thing, but they are a small percentage, and without conceit Iregard myself as no bigger a fool than the average male.Not knowing what else to say, I tell her also that it is a warm evening.
She smiles archly as though there were some hidden witticism in the remark, and I drift away, feeling ashamed of myself.To talk as an idiot when you ARE an idiot brings no discomfort; to behave as an idiot when you have sufficient sense to know it, is painful.I hide myself in the crowd, and perhaps I'll meet a woman I was introduced to three weeks ago at a picture gallery.We don't know each other's names, but, both of us feeling lonesome, we converse, as it is called.If she be the ordinary type of woman, she asks me if I am going on to the Johnsons'.I tell her no.We stand silent for a moment, both thinking what next to say.She asks me if I was at the Thompsons' the day before yesterday.I again tell her no.I begin to feel dissatisfied with myself that I was not at the Thompsons'.
Trying to get even with her, I ask her if she is going to the Browns' next Monday.(There are no Browns, she will have to say, No.) She is not, and her tone suggests that a social stigma rests upon the Browns.I ask her if she has been to Barnum's Circus; she hasn't, but is going.I give her my impressions of Barnum's Circus, which are precisely the impressions of everybody else who has seen the show.
"Or if luck be against me, she is possibly a smart woman, that is to say, her conversation is a running fire of spiteful remarks at the expense of every one she knows, and of sneers at the expense of every one she doesn't.I always feel I could make a better woman myself, out of a bottle of vinegar and a penn'orth of mixed pins.
Yet it usually takes one about ten minutes to get away from her.
"Even when, by chance, one meets a flesh-and-blood man or woman at such gatherings, it is not the time or place for real conversation;and as for the shadows, what person in their senses would exhaust a single brain cell upon such? I remember a discussion once concerning Tennyson, considered as a social item.The dullest and most densely-stupid bore I ever came across was telling how he had sat next to Tennyson at dinner.'I found him a most uninteresting man,' so he confided to us; 'he had nothing to say for himself--absolutely nothing.' I should like to resuscitate Dr.Samuel Johnson for an evening, and throw him into one of these 'At Homes'
of yours."
My friend is an admitted misanthrope, as I have explained; but one cannot dismiss him as altogether unjust.That there is a certain mystery about Society's craving for Society must be admitted.Istood one evening trying to force my way into the supper room of a house in Berkeley Square.A lady, hot and weary, a few yards in front of me was struggling to the same goal.
"Why," remarked she to her companion, "why do we come to these places, and fight like a Bank Holiday crowd for eighteenpenny-worth of food?""We come here," replied the man, whom I judged to be a philosopher, "to say we've been here."I met A----- the other evening, and asked him to dine with me on Monday.I don't know why I ask A----- to dine with me, but about once a month I do.He is an uninteresting man.
"I can't," he said, "I've got to go to the B-----s'; confounded nuisance, it will be infernally dull.""Why go?" I asked.
"I really don't know," he replied.
A little later B----- met me, and asked me to dine with him on Monday.
"I can't," I answered, "some friends are coming to us that evening.
