A PARABLE ON THE POWER OF BEAUTY.

The audience at a parlor lecture in a Beacon Street drawing room is apt to be rather intense and rapt in its attention, and discreet in its enthusiasm, with the emphasis of discernment which subdued, well-bred applause confers. At Mrs. Reginald Beveridge Vincent’s this is always particularly noticeable, for Mrs. Vincent is one of the social law givers of the “smart” set, and her rooms on these occasions are thronged with all sorts of ambitious social strugglers, who pay insidious homage to their hostess in their admiration of the idols for whom she stands sponsor. There are all sorts of people here, and among them many of the great army of the small celebrities, who are somewhat more distinguished than prosperous, and who would fain pass from the appreciation of imaginative literature to the serious consideration of dining. The fact is, the socially nebulous, who rebel against their birth’s invidious bar and strive to get out of the obscurity of the mass of humanity, are really the backbone of the enthusiasm for letters in fashionable society. These rather dubious folk, with no redeeming big bank account, are spurred by ambition to attach themselves to some sort of superiority—the superiority not always inherently residing in them; and so literature becomes their easy spoil. They constitute the one stable element in all literary gatherings out of Grub Street; and even Mrs. Vincent, with all her social prestige, could not dispense with them. And so they come, and dream of passing the rubicon, and so on to more important functions. There are many who are considered good enough and worthy to sit at a feast of reason and a flow of soul, who would never be deemed eligible for the holier function of stuffing with baked meats and wines. These literary afternoons, it may be noted, for the benefit of the ambitious, serve an incidental purpose as a sort of preliminary investigation into the character, standing and desirability of new acquaintances. Many are called to the feast of literature—but few are chosen to break bread at dinner. But the success of parlor lectures, at the most dispiriting hour of the afternoon in winter when the city streets are sunless and melancholy and depressing, depends almost entirely upon the lure of social hopes, that influence the more or less obscure to give up the comfort of their mediocre leisure to swell the triumph of those who secure the glory of the passing show of life. The woman who wants to shine as a patron of the fine arts must not neglect these mixed social elements, or her rooms will be empty. Exemplary activity in church politics and an interest in letters, are the humble beginnings, the corduroy roads, as it were, of many who ultimately shine with more certain lustre as leaders of the german. Therefore, every wise blue stocking is affable and accessible to the crowd of dubious persons whose admirations may be depended upon—unless hope burns stronger in some other quarter. One thing is certain: the grand dames of the upper social heavens are not to be depended upon when literature or philosophy is the only attraction offered, even when a grand dame is herself holding the reception. There are so many petty jealousies, and so many rival courts; and, moreover, the grand dames have so many questions of social diplomacy to occupy them—men, for instance (nice, eligible men are scarce); consequently they do not often come under the spell of the literary impressario, who gains a precarious subsistence in the lap of luxury; and, besides, the afternoon is the meridian of the shopping fever.

The large drawing room was crowded on this particular afternoon, and Mrs. Vincent was in high feather, for she had secured the new poet of the season, Mr. Blanco Winterbourne, to give his lecture on “Ideals of Beauty in Modern Life.” This was in itself a victory. Winterbourne was a brand new poet, who had dropped straight from the skies and been immediately accepted in London, so that he had all the freshness and glamour of a debutante, and his reputation being still in the making in the inner circles of society, the gold dust was still upon his wings, unbrushed and untarnished by the chill after-thoughts of envious Grub Street criticism.

Everybody sat in an attitude of rare rapture, and every time the lecturer uttered some especially well sounding and uplifting sentiment, and paused a moment for the rapid click of eyes, some fine idealist in the group would fix the hostess’s wandering glance with a gleam of appreciation. This was intended to isolate him in her memory as a man of discernment and culture worthy of remembrance in the Elysian domain of dining. There is indeed something almost pathetic in this intense concentration of mind, this painful anxiety of appreciation, which is so evidently the tribute to the hostess and not to the new genius himself. Only so much rapture goes to the lecturer as appearances demand. The glory of the occasion belongs to the patron; for skill and talent are largely a matter of labor and discipline, whereas the recognition of excellence is the quick flash of pure intellect, genius! But the audience is charitable enough, and the most terrible ordeal for the lecturer, fresh from Parnassus or Grub Street, is the pervasive and distracting rustling and swishing of silken skirts—a sound that is the most tangible symbol of women’s potent whims in the sensuous consciousness of man.