Page:Littell's Living Age - Volume 131.djvu/383

Rh , he will select a very different kind of people, though he will feel quite as well satisfied, in the end, that he has been circulating among the best classes here. Those he meets, in fact, will constantly assure him to that effect. It is, or should be, a particular charm of American society that every foreigner, whomsoever he meets, feels confident that he has been in its highest circles.

A fact which is not generally known in England in connection with American society is this: whatever influence wealth, new or old, may have, culture is something which uniformly commands respect and a good position in all circles. It may be entirely overshadowed by the claims of wealth, through sheer force of superior numbers, in some places and among some classes; but it is everywhere recognized as a sufficient passport in itself to the highest social circle. This is quite as true of social life in a far-western city, where not one member of society in a hundred lays claim to a liberal education, as it is in the most exclusive circles of Boston, where culture claims an absolute monopoly — where it seems only to tolerate wealth, and to look with a complacently patronizing air upon "birth." On the other hand, there is no circle of American society in which many of its members do not owe their position to the possession of wealth. This must always be true of any society which is untrammelled by long-existing aristocratic traditions. The utmost exclusiveness to be found in Boston or Philadelphia, or among the "Knickerbocker" families of New York, yields to the power of wealth, where it is accompanied by a fair amount of good taste on the part of its possessors. Nor is it necessary that culture or any high degree of good taste should be possessed by the father and mother of a family. American society, however exclusive, is ever ready to assume that a man of wealth has struggled upward from a youth of scant advantages, and it is amply satisfied if he gives his children the opportunities of culture which he himself may have lacked. Men like this, in truth, are among the strongest supports of any American social circle, whatever or whoever its other members may be. A few practical hints, then, to an English gentleman coming to America might be given, as follows. Supposing him to be extending his acquaintance beyond the immediate limits of his personal letters, which can be done very readily at our summer resorts, if he meet people who have cultivation, but do not presume upon it or show too much evidence that they are conscious of possessing it, he may assume that they move in good circles, and he need not ask himself what profession or business the head of the family is engaged in. If he meet a family of which the younger members are truly refined — all marked assumption of refinement being barred — he need not trouble himself if the father be a plain or even rough business man. The mother will probably be a quiet-mannered and cultivated woman; if not the latter, she will be gentle and retiring, neither denying nor parading her lack of early advantages. Such a family, the visitor may feel almost certain, belongs to the "best circles" of its own neighborhood. The description will fit thousands of families in all parts of this country who hold unchallenged positions in the highest social ranks. Finally, if an English visitor fail to find any true refinement in a family, and nothing, at best, beyond a display of showy accomplishments, he need not deceive himself by any preconceived notions of the power of wealth in American society. Such a family does not move in the really good society here, and any opinions of American social life based upon the supposition that it does will be erroneous. However sensitive the people of a country may be to the criticisms of foreign visitors, it is the visitors themselves who are chiefly interested in the formation of correct views; and I give these simple hints for the benefit of those who must at best find American society, especially at its summer gathering-places, a very elaborate puzzle to comprehend. I would only suggest in addition that they remember that universal rule of all rules — every rule has its exceptions.

Whatever its future may be, and however grand a few of its hotels now are, Saratoga cannot, with all its reputation, be favorably compared with the equally celebrated resorts of Europe. One cause which has operated against it, and will continue to do so, is the tendency of all the great eastern cities to support summer resorts of their own, so to speak. Philadelphia, for instance, has built up, with the assistance of considerable national reputation which the place has lately acquired, the city of Cape May. This city is a conglomeration of huge wooden hotels, small boarding-houses, and private cottages, accommodating about twenty thousand visitors in all. Long Branch, about equally supported at present by Philadelphia and New York, though originally built up by New York, accommodates as 