But though Cowper’s sour predictions had thus come to pass, both the Duchess and the dandy might claim that they had had their day. They had been great figures in their time. Of the two, perhaps Brummell might boast the more miraculous career. He had no advantage of birth, and but little of fortune. His grandfather had let rooms in St. James’s Street. He had only a moderate capital of thirty thousand pounds to begin with, and his beauty, of figure rather than of face, was marred by a broken nose. Yet without a single noble, important, or valuable action to his credit he cuts a figure; he stands for a symbol; his ghost walks among us still. The reason for this eminence is now a little difficult to determine. Skill of hand and nicety of judgment were his, of course, otherwise he would not have brought the art of tying neck- cloths to perfection. The story is, perhaps, too well known – how he drew his head far back and sunk his chin slowly down so that the cloth wrinkled in perfect symmetry, or if one wrinkle were too deep or too shallow, the cloth was thrown into a basket and the attempt renewed, while the Prince of Wales sat, hour after hour, watching. Yet skill of hand and nicety of judgment were not enough. Brummell owed his ascendency to some curious combination of wit, of taste, of insolence, of independence – for he was never a toady – which it were too heavy-handed to call a philosophy of life, but served the purpose. At any rate, ever since he was the most popular boy at Eton, coolly jesting when they were for throwing a bargee into the river, “My good fellows, don’t send him into the river; the man is evidently in a high state of perspiration, and it almost amounts to a certainty that he will catch cold”, he floated buoyantly and gaily and without apparent effort to the top of whatever society he found himself among. Even when he was a captain in the Tenth Hussars and so scandalously inattentive to duty that he only knew his troop by “the very large blue nose” of one of the men, he was liked and tolerated. When he resigned his commission, for the regiment was to be sent to Manchester – and “I really could not go – think, your Royal Highness, Manchester!” – he had only to set up house in Chesterfield Street to become the head of the most jealous and exclusive society of his time. For example, he was at Almack’s one night talking to Lord – . The Duchess of – was there, escorting her young daughter, Lady Louisa. The Duchess caught sight of Mr. Brummell, and at once warned her daughter that if that gentleman near the door came and spoke to them she was to be careful to impress him favourably, “for”, and she sank her voice to a whisper, “he is the celebrated Mr. Brummell”. Lady Louisa might well have wondered why a Mr. Brummell was celebrated, and why a Duke’s daughter need take care to impress a Mr. Brummell. And then, directly he began to move towards them, the reason of her mother’s warning became apparent. The grace of his carriage was so astonishing; his bows were so exquisite. Everybody looked overdressed or badly dressed – some, indeed, looked positively dirty – beside him. His clothes seemed to melt into each other with the perfection of their cut and the quiet harmony of their colour. Without a single point of emphasis everything was distinguished – from his bow to the way he opened his snuff-box, with his left hand invariably. He was the personification of freshness and cleanliness and order. One could well believe that he had his chair brought into his dressing-room and was deposited at Almack’s without letting a puff of wind disturb his curls or a spot of mud stain his shoes. When he actually spoke to her, Lady Louisa would be at first enchanted – no one was more agreeable, more amusing, had a manner that was more flattering and enticing – and then she would be puzzled. It was quite possible that before the evening was out he would ask her to marry him, and yet his manner of doing it was such that the most ingenuous débutante could not believe that he meant it seriously. His odd grey eyes seemed to contradict his lips; they had a look in them which made the sincerity of his compliments very doubtful. And then he said very cutting things about other people. They were not exactly witty; they were certainly not profound; but they were so skilful, so adroit – they had a twist in them which made them slip into the mind and stay there when more important phrases were forgotten. He had downed the Regent himself with his dexterous “Who’s your fat friend?” and his method was the same with humbler people who snubbed him or bored him. “Why, what could I do, my good fellow, but cut the connection? I discovered that Lady Mary actually ate cabbage!” – so he explained to a friend his failure to marry a lady. And, again, when some dull citizen pestered him about his tour to the North, “Which of the lakes do I admire?” he asked his valet. “Windermere, sir.” “Ah, yes – Windermere, so it is – Windermere.” That was his style, flickering, sneering, hovering on the verge of insolence, skimming the edge of nonsense, but always keeping within some curious mean, so that one knew the false Brummell story from the true by its exaggeration. Brummell could never have said, “Wales, ring the bell”, any more than he could have worn a brightly coloured waistcoat or a glaring necktie. That “certain exquisite propriety” which Lord Byron remarked in his dress stamped his whole being, and made him appear cool, refined, and debonair among the gentlemen who talked only of sport, which Brummell detested, and smelt of the stable, which Brummell never visited. Lady Louisa might well be on tenter-hooks to impress Mr. Brummell favourably. Mr. Brummell’s good opinion was of the utmost importance in the world of Lady Louisa.
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