Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXIV, No. 5, May 1849

LE FOLLET
Boulevart St. Martin, 61.
 
Robes de Mme. Bara BrÉjard, r. Lafitte, 5—Coiffures de Hamelin, pass. du Saumon, 21.
Fleurs de Chagot ainÉ, r. Richelieu, 81—Dentelles de Violard, r. Choiseul, 2bis.
 
Graham’s Magazine

GRAHAM’S MAGAZINE.

Vol. XXXIV. PHILADELPHIA, May, 1849. No. 5.

MR. AND MRS. JOHN JOHNSON JONES.

A TALE OF EVERYDAY LIFE.

———

BY ANGELE DE V. HULL.

———

“These are the spiders of society.”

Mr. and Mrs. John Johnson Jones were commonplace people, but like him who cried because there were no more worlds to conquer, they were ambitious. There was one sphere within whose sacred precincts they could not enter, and they wanted—to be fashionable. They looked around—they beheld others, who, like themselves, had once been excluded from the “land of promise,” and with a mighty resolution, determined to die or conquer—to overthrow the chevaux-de-frise surrounding Japonicadom, with “the impudence of wealth;” and at length—at length the charmed gates at which Mrs. Jones had sat in an agony of despair, burst open to her delighted gaze, and she rose in public estimation high as the frothy pyramids with which she ornamented her expensive suppers and baited her guests.

After all, and in spite of the old copy that we have written, about the root of all evil, money is a “great invention;” especially here, where it bestows wit on fools, beauty on beasts, and covering the blots on all escutcheons, forces us to that promiscuous mingling which out-democrats democracy. How magnanimous it makes us! While the friends of the needy assist them down the hill of fortune and bid them farewell, they turn to help the lucky over its stepping stones, and lifting the pedlar’s pack from his shoulders, rub them down, and push him into what we call “our first circle”. And a pretty circle it would be, were the beginning known! But the shining gold that glitters through a handsome purse, is the passe partout; and like the princess in the fairy tale, nobody looks behind for fear of hobgoblin discoveries of his next door neighbor. Besides, reduced people are so contemptible! Put them out! With each new reign new peers arise, and so new houses should rear their tops over the old ones, when the owners are useless and the furniture tarnished.

Such a generation as we are! Such an age of refinement! Who would sit down in the year 1849, to a dinner on a square-table! Who would touch any but a Westphalia ham—drink champagne from a narrow glass—take a cup of tea from any but a silver urn—sit in any but a Louis Quatorze—kiss a baby that wore corals—notice an acquaintance with a last winter bonnet, or a visite instead of a Jenny Lind? Dear me! dear me! I have been thinking a long time, and don’t know anybody that would!

Mrs. Jones knew better for one—so did Mr. Jones; and while they were as vulgar as pride and ignorance could make them, learned to look upon themselves as “glasses of fashion and moulds of form.” They had to labor for the distinction with a zeal worthy a better cause; and my readers shall have the benefit of their attempts if they are not already too tired to proceed.

Mrs. Jones canvassed among her female acquaintances for popularity, by calling, flattering, cringing, and sending them delicacies made by her own fair hands; and Mr. Jones, who was very anxious to be “genteel,” studied Chesterfield, and wondered what it meant. He belonged to one of the first families of a state, in which all the families were first—a universal right of distinction. His connections would have been titled in an aristocracy; but their respect for the American government made them condescend to be plain Misters, Madams, and Misses.

Mr. Jones himself was a little finnikin man, with sharp, black eyes, and high cheek bones, upon which rested two red spots like the remains of a fly-blister. He combed his hair into a stiff toupet, that made him look like an inverted furniture-brush, with the usual equivocal portrait of some very great individual upon it.

Fortune particularly distinguished Mr. Jones and saved him the trial of an impossibility—the one of distinguishing himself. She gave him the key to every door when she made him wealthy, and in pure gratitude he converted his soul into a cent, and his heart into hard specie.

Then, Fortune bestowed on him the would-be-elegant Miss Pushaw, as high-born as himself; and he was certainly a happy man when he stood up with a bride whose dress was, like Margaret Overreach’s, “sprinkled o’er with gold.” He was soon dazzled by her manoeuvering qualities, and touched by the congeniality of feeling which existed between them. An adoration of fine clothes, fine furniture, and fashionable people, was the sacred link that bound these loving hearts into one; and upon their removal from the country to the city, no marble-cutter labored harder, or struck more small pieces right and left, than did Mr. and Mrs. John Johnson Jones, when they fawned and flattered, and ran small errands for the neighbors that surrounded them, “the great Athenians.”

Mrs. Jones kept a small confectionary establishment in her pantry, for all the ladies who fell sick; and Mr. Jones was kind enough to open a cigar and drinking establishment for the gentlemen who were obliging enough to call. They progressed, however, slowly in the affections of the proud ——ians, and were somewhat discouraged, but recollecting the pretty motto of “Hope on, hope ever,” they did not despair, and contemplated taking larger strides toward gentility.

Mrs. Jones had been originally called Sally, but changed the appellation for the softer one of Sara. Spring came on, and she resolved to follow the world of fashion to one of its favorite resorts, the little village of Quiproquo. She persuaded her loving spouse to rent one of its cottages; and covering some old sofas and chairs with new chintz, furnished it nicely and neatly enough to have satisfied the most fastidious. But to every visiter the same apology was made for its plainness; and Mrs. Jones informed them all that “her house in town was furnished elegunt, but she didn’t like to bring out her mahogany cheers,” while her husband’s invariable rejoinder was, “Why, Sara, there are plenty more where them came from!” A mere playful allusion to the amount of his fortune, a fact he never lost sight of, and in time it had its due effect on his listeners.

This house became at length the pied-À-terre for all the high-bred loungers that had nothing to do but smoke, drink, and play Boston in the summer months; the season of inevitable idleness for all Southerners of all professions—doctors excepted.

Mrs. Jones talked very loud and very much du nez; she took all the empty speeches she listened to for witticisms, and was forever busy in the service of others, running about shaking a little basket of keys, to impress them with a due sense of her importance.

Mr. Jones’s wine flowed freely, (so did his brandy par parenthesis. Brandy-and-water drinking becomes a solemn duty in the warm weather, among the inhabitants of Quiproquo.) Then the boxes of best Havanas were fast emptied, and clouds of smoke arose from the front piazza, frightening the neighbors into thinking the house was on fire until they were used to it. And Boston! and whist! there was no end to these favorite games, while the gossips of the village whispered that it was a very profitable amusement to Mr. Jones.

But there was still a Mordecai at the gate of poor Mrs. Jones’s soul. Many had called to see her, whose nod a few months previous was as great as Jove’s from Mount Olympus; but like all who strive for much, she wanted more. There was one card whose reception would at once stamp her “a peer,” give her the right to place the golden grasshopper in her hair; for Mrs. Macfuss was one of the proud Autochthones whose boast was that she had never been but the first among the first. She had been heard to say that she could not think of encouraging such persons as the Joneses! And such a speech from the cynosure of all eyes threw Mrs. Jones into hysterics.

Mrs. Macfuss’s house was the house par excellence; her suppers were given in the Hall of Apollo, where Lucullus supped with Lucullus. The dinners were triumphs of culinary art, over which the very spirit of Ude must have presided. Her toilette was ever in the most exquisite taste. Her dresses gave the ton, and her patronage decided the fate of a mantuamaker for life. The entire race of milliners would have credited her forever sooner than lose the honor of her custom; and she it was for whose favor poor Mrs. Jones pined in green and yellow melancholy. She cried for very spite, while Mr. Jones swore that he would trample on the d—n proud set after a while.

They determined to make a mighty effort, and commenced preparations for a ball. Invitations were written on scented paper, and put into envelopes with embossed vines and bouquets over the seal. These were sent to her new acquaintances, and the “picked and chosen” of her old ones; and breaking through the charmed rules of etiquette, Mrs. Jones’s cards were slipped into some of the invitations and left at Mrs. Macfuss’s for herself and family. A band of music was engaged, and every thing prepared on a large scale.

Mrs. Jones was seen rushing in and out of the house in an old loose gown looking like—herself; sleeves up to her elbows, and said elbows covered with eggs, sugar and butter; while behind her ran Master Pushaw Jones, on a pair of hard fat, blue legs, his face besmeared with the same sweet compound that graced his mamma’s arms, enlivening the scene with shrill screams for egg-shells, into which he concocted sundry messes that defy description.

In every sunny spot around the house were tables covered with cakes like pyramids of snow, so white and smooth was the icing poured over them. In the kitchen were fowls roasting and hams boiling; turkeys innumerable in their tin houses, getting basted and browned; and oysters getting plumped and pickled, peppered and spiced. There was more shuffling, running about, upsetting and breaking, than can be imagined, and fussing, to Mrs. Jones’s content. Baskets of champagne arriving from town; blocks of ice; borrowed china and glass; lamps, candelabras, &c., &c. Servants rushing out to assist the draymen, shouting, tumbling over one another in an agony of amazement at “Miss Sally’s importance,” and ransacking drawers and closets for cup-towels and tumbler-towels that were insufficient for all the wiping that was to be done.

The table was set out—and a magnificent one it was, if profusion is beauty. There was nothing wanting. Plenty of lights, too, were in readiness, and nearly all was completed the evening before, to poor Mrs. Jones’s relief. She went to bed, endeavoring to think the fatigue a pleasure, and slept soundly enough to feel recruited.

But, alas! a bad day and a worse night damped her expectations, and she walked about, giving her directions with less buoyancy than the evening previous. Then, the fair moon was filling the earth with her silver light, and covering the galleries (whereon the guests were to have promenaded) with her radiance. Now, the air was damp and chilly, the rain was still dropping over the roof, and the roads were, of course, almost impassable. The grandees shrugged their shoulders at the idea of a wet drive to Mrs. Jones’s party, and many who would have gone, remained at home for want of comfortable equipages.

The musicians called the quadrilles in hoarse voices, and their instruments were out of tune. The wind blew out the lights, and great confusion prevailed among the dancers. The icing ran down the sides of the cakes, the Charlotte Russes flowed over and the beautiful jelly, so perfectly moulded, melted away like a dream. Mrs. Jones was ready to swoon, but rallied, and talked louder than ever as she ran to and fro, in great agony of mind. Her husband suffered less; he was winning at cards, and the expenses of the party were much lessened as some of the guests pockets lightened. He even forgot the absent Macfusses, and wondered that Sara “took on so.” Supper was announced—the champagne foamed and sparkled, the corks flew about like hail-stones, and every body was pleased but poor Mrs. Jones, who was glad when it ended, and lay down at length with a terrible migraine. Then came the nightmare in the shape of one of her own black cakes thrown at her head by Mrs. Macfuss—and so ended the party for her.

She had, however, the consolation of telling her next door neighbor, who was too sick to accept her invitation, what an “elegant supper she had, and how much it had cost her.” She enumerated the number of empty bottles that had been full, the loaves of sugar that were broken up, and the hundreds of pounds of ice that had been used for freezing, &c., &c. The dozens of eggs, the ounces of gelatin! She had followed Miss Leslie’s receipts, “and,” added she, taking breath, “you know, Mrs. Hill, that you must go to vast expense for that, as she directs you to take the best of every thing.”

Mrs. Hill did not doubt it, and as she afterward told her sister, heard an account so minute of the costs of the entertainment, that she could easily have made out the bills for the city confectioners and grocers.

“But she did not tell me who were her guests, Eda; and I really had no opportunity of asking,” said she, smiling. “Now I might have learned something more interesting for your benefit.”

“Not for mine, Fanny,” returned Miss Seymour, laughing. “Poor Mrs. Jones! she could not tell you that Mrs. Macfuss did not accept her polite invitation, and in her absence, she considered her rooms empty. Is she not a host within herself?”

“I should like to have seen her reception of Mrs. Jones’s envelopes and cards,” exclaimed young Seymour, rising from the sofa, and seating himself at his sister’s side. “It is certainly a bore to have such vulgarians thrust themselves among us. Fancy your compliance with the request I heard her make you, Eda, to ‘Come over and be intimate!’”

“You may look as disdainful as you please, my exclusive brother,” said Mrs. Hill, laying her white hand upon his own, “but I prophecy Mrs. Jones’s rise in the world of fashion as a thing of certain occurrence, as much as we all now laugh at and despise her vulgarity and ignorance. She will be as well considered as you or I, and more, for she has wealth, and we have only education and high-breeding.”

“Tell it not in Gath! What, Macfusses and all, Fanny!” cried her brother. “Impossible! No one is a prophet in his own country, my dear sister, and thus I console myself for the shock you have given me.”

“Nous verrons, ce que nous verrons, Harry,” said Mrs. Hill, smiling, “but I think I am right. Human nature is the same all over the world, and I have learned to study it of late years. Did not Lady Montague write, that wherever she had gone in her travels in Europe and the East, she met with ‘men and women!’”

“Very true, Fanny, but if what you predict comes to pass, I shall play Timon of Athens, and fly to Texas.”

“O, lame and impotent conclusion!” said Eda, rising and running her fingers over the harp-strings, sending a full, clear strain through the apartment.

“‘If music be the food of love, play on;

Give me excess of it, that surfeiting—’

I may forget Fanny’s shocking view of fashionable human nature. She is a perfect old Diogenes, and deserves no better than a tub! Play, Eda, that ‘music for a time may change her nature.’”

“Nay, sing, sister,” said Fanny; “’twill soothe his troubled spirit sooner. Sing something from Lucia di Lammermoor, and I will promise not to repeat my offence.”

But Mrs. Hill was right. She did not presume to deny the title of every one in our own free country to the equality it claims. She would exclude none from the advantages of society, let their pedigree be what it might. She respected honesty, and venerated truth. She knew that wealth could not confer either, and was too often acquired in their absence; to her it covered no faults, mended no reputation, refined no coarseness of mind, and looking upon it as affording opportunities of relieving misery, ways of making others happy, of giving to genius the advantages of education and learning, it was no wonder that she sighed, as she witnessed its daily influence on the minds and hearts of those with whom she mingled. There was no bitterness in her contemplation of its consequences, for she was too good and gentle to be envious, too pious to repine. She had been in the sunshine of the great world’s favor, and was now beginning to see its clouds, as her means of affording mere entertainment to its votaries began to decline. But, although she felt privations, the want of comforts to which she had ever been accustomed; although she felt that wealth can bestow much happiness on those who know its proper use, she murmured not, nor thought more of those on whom fortune was conferring her choicest favors. No wonder, then, that she could foresee the success of Mrs. Jones, when with her accomplishments and fine, noble mind, the diminution of prosperity brought her less consideration. The mortification to her was, not the loss of fortune, but the mistake she made in fancying that her real worth had been appreciated. She knew that true hearts could not forsake her, that true friends could not be changed, and the rest passed from her mind as a dream that had lasted too long.

Winter approached, and after giving dinners, suppers, and picknicks innumerable in honor of her new acquaintance, Mrs. Jones prepared to remove into her house in town. At the same time Mrs. Macfuss was ready to do the like, and as mortified as the former felt at her palpable neglect, it was a comfort to know that their furniture-wagons went side by side for six good miles.

And so ended Mrs. Jones’s first year of climbing. The ladder seemed not so steep, nor the ascent so difficult; she could look up and smile on those at the top, while hands were held out to help her as she mounted.

She dreamed of Paradise, and began to breathe and hope. Who would not in her place? She talked louder than ever, and began to patronize a few, offering to chaperone very young ladies, or ladies of a certain age. Her toilette was magnificent, and began to be elegant. Mrs. Jones had improved decidedly.

The house continued to be thronged with her usual visiters. Her parlors were a kind of club-room for young men who staggered about, half-sober, after having played cards all night, or rested their weary heads upon the satin pillows of her sofas, and dozed off the effect of the champagne. Mrs. Jones declined all further communication with her former friends, and wrote pompous notes to all who took any liberty with her name. It was a thing she could not think of allowing; she had certainly the right of choosing her associates, and neither herself nor Mr. Jones could permit any one to question their conduct in any manner. Indeed, she was often upon the point of requesting Mr. Jones to impress it upon the minds of the silly creatures, that she could not acknowledge the acquaintance of such a promiscuous set. They had fastened upon her during her residence at “the Creek,” and she could not shake them off; she never dreamed of encouraging them, and had resolved on her return from the North, not to notice any calls paid her by such an obstinate set.

“Ah, indeed!” exclaimed the bosom-friend of days gone by, upon hearing all this repeated; “she don’t intend to know us! Perhaps she forgets how glad she was when aunt invited her and her sister to a party, and they mortified us so, by coming with paper crowns on their heads, and little baskets filled with artificial flowers on their arms?”

“And every one laughed so!” cried another. “She came to see me once, with a colored dress on, trimmed all over with broad white ruffles. Wasn’t that a costume? I wonder who she is, to slight us! She would do better to recollect what she springs from. Indeed! the time was—”

But we have not time to repeat the angry sayings of Mrs. Jones’ friends. Some were told to her, but she cared not a sous, since the old set and the new would never meet to canvass her pedigree or her paper wreaths of yore. So, bidding a long farewell to them all, she left for New York, in all the glory of traveling-dresses, trunks labeled “John Johnson Jones,” and a white nurse for Master Pushaw.

——

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