OSTENTATION

It is many a long year since I saw the inside of a ballroom, but by all accounts very much the same change has come over the spirit of ball-giving as of dinner-giving. Here again the "Emulous Ostentation" which I have described is the enemy. When I first grew up, there were infinitely more balls than now. From Easter till August there were at least two every night, and a hostess counted herself lucky if she had only one rival to contend with. Between 11 p.m. and 2 a.m. Grosvenor Place was blocked by the opposing streams of carriages going from Mayfair to Belgravia, and from Belgravia to Mayfair. There were three or four really great Houses—"Houses" with a capital H—such as Grosvenor House, Stafford House, Dudley House, and Montagu House—where a ball could scarcely help being an event—or, as Pennialinus would say, "a function." But, putting these on one side, the great mass of hostesses contrived to give excellent balls, where every one went and every one enjoyed themselves, with very little fuss and no ostentation. The drawing-room of an ordinary house in Belgravia or Grosvenor Square made a perfectly sufficient ballroom. A good floor, a good band, and plenty of light, were the only essentials of success. Decoration was represented by such quaint devices as pink muslin on the banisters, or green festoons dependent from the chandelier. A good supper was an additional merit; and, if the host produced his best champagne, he was held in just esteem by dancing men. But yet I well remember a cold supper at a ball which the present King and Queen attended, in 1881, and no one grumbled, though perhaps the young bloods thought it a little old-fashioned. The essence of a good ball was not expense or display or overwhelming preparation, but the certainty that you would meet your friends. Boys and girls danced, and married women looked on, or only stole a waltz when their juniors were at supper. In those days a ball was really a merry-making.

Nowadays I gather from the Morning Post that balls are comparatively rare events, but what they lack in frequency they make up in ostentation. As to the sums which the Heits and the Heims, the Le Beers and the De Porters, lavish on one night's entertainment I hear statistical accounts which not only outrage economy but stagger credibility. Here again the rushing flood of ill-gotten gold has overflowed its banks, and polluted the "crystal river of unreproved enjoyment."

There is yet another form of entertainment which Emulous Ostentation has destroyed. A few years ago there still were women in London who could hold a "salon." Of these gatherings the principal attraction was the hostess, and, in a secondary degree, the agreeableness of the people whom she could gather round her. Of fuss and finery, decoration and display, there was absolutely nothing. A typical instance of what I mean will perhaps recur to the memory of some who read this chapter. Picture to yourself two not very large and rather dingy rooms. The furniture is dark and old-fashioned—mahogany and rosewood, with here and there a good cabinet or a French armchair. No prettiness of lace and china; no flowers; and not very much light. Books everywhere, some good engravings, a comfortable sofa, and a tray of tea and coffee. That was all. It is difficult to conceive a less ostentatious or a more economical mode of entertaining; yet the lady who presided over that "salon" had been for fifty years one of the most celebrated women in Europe; had been embraced by Napoleon; had flirted with the Allied Sovereigns; had been described by Byron; had discussed scholarship with Grote, and statecraft with Metternich; had sate to Lawrence, and caballed with Antonelli. Even in old age and decrepitude she opened her rooms to her friends every evening in the year, and never, even in the depths of September, found her court deserted. Certainly it was a social triumph, and one has only to compare it with the scene in the stockbroker's saloon—the blaze of electric light, the jungle of flowers, the furniture from Sinclair's, the pictures from Christie's—and to contrast the assembled guests. Instead of celebrities, notorieties—woman at once under-dressed and over-dressed; men with cent. per cent. written deep in every line of their expressive countenances; and, at the centre of the throng, a hostess in a diamond crown, who conducts her correspondence by telegraph, because her spelling is a little shaky and mistakes in telegrams are charitably attributed to the clerks.

One of the worst properties of Emulous Ostentation is that it naturally affects its victims with an insatiable thirst for money. If Mrs. Tymmyns in Onslow Gardens is to have as good a dinner, and as smart a victoria, and as large a tiara, as her friend Mrs. Goldbug in Park Lane, it is obvious that Mr. Tymmyns must find the money somehow. Who wills the end wills the means; and, if social exigencies demand a larger outlay, the Tymmynses cannot afford to be too scrupulous about their method of providing for it. I suppose it is this consideration which makes us just now a nation of gamblers, whereas our more respectable but less adventurous fathers were well content to be a nation of shopkeepers.

Of course, in all ages there has been a gambling clique in society; but in old days it kept itself, as the saying is, to itself. Of necessity it always was on the look-out for neophytes to initiate and to pillage, but the non-gambling majority of society regarded the gambling minority with horror; and a man who palpably meant to make money out of a visit to a country house would probably have been requested to withdraw. "Order a fly for Mr. L. at eleven o'clock," said old Lord Crewe to the butler when a guest had committed a social atrocity under his roof. "Thank you, Lord Crewe," said Mr. L., "but not for me. I am not going to-day." "Oh yes, you are," responded the host, and secreted himself in his private apartments till the offender had been duly extruded. Similar justice would, I think, have been dealt out to a gambler who rooked the young and the inexperienced. Not so to-day; the pigeon, however unfledged and tender, is the appointed prey of the rook, and the venerable bird who does the plucking is entirely undeterred by any considerations of pity, shame, or fear. "Is he any good?" is a question which circulates round the Board of Green Cloth whenever a new face fresh from Oxford or Sandhurst is noted in the social throng. "Oh yes, he's all right; I know his people," may be the cheerful response; or else, in a very different note, "No, he hasn't got a feather to fly with." Fortunate is the youth on whom this disparaging verdict is pronounced, for in that case he may escape the benevolent attentions of the

"Many-wintered crow

That leads the gambling rookery home."

But even impecuniosity does not always protect the inexperienced. A lady who had lived for some years in the country returned to London not long ago, and, enumerating the social changes which she had observed, she said, "People seem to marry on £500 a year and yet have diamond tiaras." It was, perhaps, a too hasty generalization, but an instance in point immediately recurred to my recollection. A young couple had married with no other means of subsistence than smartness, good looks, and pleasant manners. After a prolonged tour round the country houses of their innumerable friends, they settled down at Woolwich. "Why Woolwich?" was the natural enquiry; and the reason, when at length it came to light, was highly characteristic of the age. It appeared that these kind young people used to give nice little evening parties, invite the "Gentlemen Cadets" from Woolwich Academy, and make them play cards for money. The device of setting up housekeeping on the pocket-money of babes and sucklings is thoroughly symptomatic of our decadence. Emulous Ostentation makes every one want more money than he has, and at the same time drugs all scruples of conscience as to the method of obtaining it.