To sit among a group of perfectly mute men, with an occasional word dropping into the silence like a stone in a well, was surely little better.
A girl told me she had once sat through an entire cotillion with a youth whose only remark during the evening had been (after absorbed contemplation of the articles in question), "How do you like my socks?"On another occasion my neighbor at table said to me:
"I think the man on my right has gone to sleep.He is sitting with his eyes closed!" She was mistaken.He was practising his newly acquired "repose of manner," and living up to the standard of his set.
The model young man of that period had another offensive habit, his pose of never seeing you, which got on the nerves of his elders to a considerable extent.If he came into a drawing-room where you were sitting with a lady, he would shake hands with her and begin a conversation, ignoring your existence, although you may have been his guest at dinner the night before, or he yours.This was also a tenet of his creed borrowed from trans-Atlantic cousins, who, by the bye, during the time I speak of, found America, and especially our Eastern states, a happy hunting-ground, - all the clubs, country houses, and society generally opening their doors to the "sesame" of English nationality.It took our innocent youths a good ten years to discover that there was no reciprocity in the arrangement; it was only in the next epoch (the list of the three referred to) that our men recovered their self-respect, and assumed towards foreigners in general the attitude of polite indifference which is their manner to us when abroad.Nothing could have been more provincial and narrow than the ideas of our "smart" men at that time.They congregated in little cliques, huddling together in public, and cracking personal old jokes; but were speechless with MAUVAISE HONTE if thrown among foreigners or into other circles of society.All this is not to be wondered at considering the amount of their general education and reading.One charming little custom then greatly in vogue among our JEUNESSE DOREE was to remain at a ball, after the other guests had retired, tipsy, and then break anything that came to hand.It was so amusing to throw china, glass, or valuable plants, out of the windows, to strip to the waist and box or bait the tired waiters.