Worldly Ways and Byways(世俗之路)
VIP免费
2024-12-25
0
0
649.31KB
183 页
5.9玖币
侵权投诉
Worldly Ways and Byways
1
Worldly Ways and
Byways
Eliot Gregory
Worldly Ways and Byways
2
To the Reader
THERE existed formerly, in diplomatic circles, a curious custom,
since fallen into disuse, entitled the Pele Mele, contrived doubtless by
some distracted Master of Ceremonies to quell the endless jealousies and
quarrels for precedence between courtiers and diplomatists of contending
pretensions. Under this rule no rank was recognized, each person being
allowed at banquet, fete, or other public ceremony only such place as he
had been ingenious or fortunate enough to obtain.
Any one wishing to form an idea of the confusion that ensued, of the
intrigues and expedients resorted to, not only in procuring prominent
places, but also in ensuring the integrity of the Pele Mele, should glance
over the amusing memoirs of M. de Segur.
The aspiring nobles and ambassadors, harassed by this constant
preoccupation, had little time or inclination left for any serious pursuit,
since, to take a moment's repose or an hour's breathing space was to risk
falling behind in the endless and aimless race. Strange as it may appear,
the knowledge that they owed place and preferment more to chance or
intrigue than to any personal merit or inherited right, instead of lessening
the value of the prizes for which all were striving, seemed only to enhance
them in the eyes of the competitors.
Success was the unique standard by which they gauged their fellows.
Those who succeeded revelled in the adulation of their friends, but when
any one failed, the fickle crowd passed him by to bow at more fortunate
feet.
No better picture could be found of the "world" of to-day, a perpetual
Pele Mele, where such advantages only are conceded as we have been
sufficiently enterprising to obtain, and are strong or clever enough to keep
- a constant competition, a daily steeplechase, favorable to daring spirits
and personal initiative but with the defect of keeping frail humanity ever
on the qui vive.
Philosophers tell us, that we should seek happiness only in the calm of
our own minds, not allowing external conditions or the opinions of others
to influence our ways. This lofty detachment from environment is
Worldly Ways and Byways
3
achieved by very few. Indeed, the philosophers themselves (who may be
said to have invented the art of "posing") were generally as vain as
peacocks, profoundly pre-occupied with the verdict of their
contemporaries and their position as regards posterity.
Man is born gregarious and remains all his life a herding animal. As
one keen observer has written, "So great is man's horror of being alone
that he will seek the society of those he neither likes nor respects sooner
than be left to his own." The laws and conventions that govern men's
intercourse have, therefore, formed a tempting subject for the writers of all
ages. Some have labored hoping to reform their generation, others have
written to offer solutions for life's many problems.
Beaumarchais, whose penetrating wit left few subjects untouched,
makes his Figaro put the subject aside with "Je me presse de rire de tout,
de peur d'etre oblige d'en pleurer."
The author of this little volume pretends to settle no disputes, aims at
inaugurating no reforms. He has lightly touched on passing topics and
jotted down, "to point a moral or adorn a tale," some of the more obvious
foibles and inconsistencies of our American ways. If a stray bit of
philosophy has here and there slipped in between the lines, it is mostly of
the laughing "school," and used more in banter than in blame.
This much abused "world" is a fairly agreeable place if you do not take
it seriously. Meet it with a friendly face and it will smile gayly back at you,
but do not ask of it what it cannot give, or attribute to its verdicts more
importance than they deserve.
ELIOT GREGORY
Newport, November first, 1897
Worldly Ways and Byways
4
CHAPTER 1 - Charm
WOMEN endowed by nature with the indescribable quality we call
"charm" (for want of a better word), are the supreme development of a
perfected race, the last word, as it were, of civilization; the flower of their
kind, crowning centuries of growing refinement and cultivation. Other
women may unite a thousand brilliant qualities, and attractive attributes,
may be beautiful as Astarte or witty as Madame de Montespan, those
endowed with the power of charm, have in all ages and under every sky,
held undisputed rule over the hearts of their generation.
When we look at the portraits of the enchantresses whom history tells
us have ruled the world by their charm, and swayed the destinies of
empires at their fancy, we are astonished to find that they have rarely been
beautiful. From Cleopatra or Mary of Scotland down to Lola Montez, the
tell-tale coin or canvas reveals the same marvellous fact. We wonder how
these women attained such influence over the men of their day, their
husbands or lovers. We would do better to look around us, or inward, and
observe what is passing in our own hearts.
Pause, reader mine, a moment and reflect. Who has held the first place
in your thoughts, filled your soul, and influenced your life? Was she the
most beautiful of your acquaintances, the radiant vision that dazzled your
boyish eyes? Has she not rather been some gentle, quiet woman whom
you hardly noticed the first time your paths crossed, but who gradually
grew to be a part of your life - to whom you instinctively turned for
consolation in moments of discouragement, for counsel in your difficulties,
and whose welcome was the bright moment in your day, looked forward to
through long hours of toil and worry?
In the hurly-burly of life we lose sight of so many things our fathers
and mothers clung to, and have drifted so far away from their gentle
customs and simple, home-loving habits, that one wonders what
impression our society would make on a woman of a century ago, could
she by some spell be dropped into the swing of modern days. The good
soul would be apt to find it rather a far cry from the quiet pleasures of her
youth, to "a ladies' amateur bicycle race" that formed the attraction
Worldly Ways and Byways
5
recently at a summer resort.
That we should have come to think it natural and proper for a young
wife and mother to pass her mornings at golf, lunching at the club- house
to "save time," returning home only for a hurried change of toilet to start
again on a bicycle or for a round of calls, an occupation that will leave her
just the half-hour necessary to slip into a dinner gown, and then for her to
pass the evening in dancing or at the card-table, shows, when one takes the
time to think of it, how unconsciously we have changed, and (with all
apologies to the gay hostesses and graceful athletes of to-day) not for the
better.
It is just in the subtle quality of charm that the women of the last ten
years have fallen away from their elder sisters. They have been carried
along by a love of sport, and by the set of fashion's tide, not stopping to
ask themselves whither they are floating. They do not realize all the
importance of their acts nor the true meaning of their metamorphosis.
The dear creatures should be content, for they have at last escaped
from the bondage of ages, have broken their chains, and vaulted over their
prison walls. "Lords and masters" have gradually become very humble
and obedient servants, and the "love, honour, and obey" of the marriage
service might now more logically be spoken by the man; on the lips of the
women of to-day it is but a graceful "FACON DE PARLER," and holds
only those who choose to be bound.
It is not my intention to rail against the short-comings of the day. That
ungrateful task I leave to sterner moralists, and hopeful souls who naively
imagine they can stem the current of an epoch with the barrier of their
eloquence, or sweep back an ocean of innovations by their logic. I should
like, however, to ask my sisters one question: Are they quite sure that
women gain by these changes? Do they imagine, these "sporty" young
females in short- cut skirts and mannish shirts and ties, that it is seductive
to a lover, or a husband to see his idol in a violent perspiration, her
draggled hair blowing across a sunburned face, panting up a long hill in
front of him on a bicycle, frantic at having lost her race? Shade of gentle
William! who said
A woman moved, is like a fountain troubled, - Muddy, ill-seeming,
Worldly Ways and Byways
6
thick, bereft of beauty. And while it is so, none so dry or thirsty Will deign
to sip or touch one drop of it.
Is the modern girl under the impression that men will be contented
with poor imitations of themselves, to share their homes and be the
mothers of their children? She is throwing away the substance for the
shadow!
The moment women step out from the sanctuary of their homes, the
glamour that girlhood or maternity has thrown around them cast aside, that
moment will they cease to rule mankind. Women may agitate until they
have obtained political recognition, but will awake from their foolish
dream of power, realizing too late what they have sacrificed to obtain it,
that the price has been very heavy, and the fruit of their struggles bitter on
their lips.
There are few men, I imagine, of my generation to whom the words
"home" and "mother" have not a penetrating charm, who do not look back
with softened heart and tender thoughts to fireside scenes of evening
readings and twilight talks at a mother's knee, realizing that the best in
their natures owes its growth to these influences.
I sometimes look about me and wonder what the word "mother" will
mean later, to modern little boys. It will evoke, I fear, a confused
remembrance of some centaur-like being, half woman, half wheel, or as it
did to neglected little Rawdon Crawley, the vision of a radiant creature in
gauze and jewels, driving away to endless FETES - FETES followed by
long mornings, when he was told not to make any noise, or play too loudly,
"as poor mamma is resting." What other memories can the "successful"
woman of to-day hope to leave in the minds of her children? If the child
remembers his mother in this way, will not the man who has known and
perhaps loved her, feel the same sensation of empty futility when her name
is mentioned?
The woman who proposes a game of cards to a youth who comes to
pass an hour in her society, can hardly expect him to carry away a
particularly tender memory of her as he leaves the house. The girl who has
rowed, ridden, or raced at a man's side for days, with the object of getting
the better of him at some sport or pastime, cannot reasonably hope to be
Worldly Ways and Byways
7
connected in his thoughts with ideas more tender or more elevated than
"odds" or "handicaps," with an undercurrent of pique if his unsexed
companion has "downed" him successfully.
What man, unless he be singularly dissolute or unfortunate, but turns
his steps, when he can, towards some dainty parlor where he is sure of
finding a smiling, soft-voiced woman, whose welcome he knows will
soothe his irritated nerves and restore the even balance of his temper,
whose charm will work its subtle way into his troubled spirit? The wife he
loves, or the friend he admires and respects, will do more for him in one
such quiet hour when two minds commune, coming closer to the real man,
and moving him to braver efforts, and nobler aims, than all the beauties
and "sporty" acquaintances of a lifetime. No matter what a man's
education or taste is, none are insensible to such an atmosphere or to the
grace and witchery a woman can lend to the simplest surroundings. She
need not be beautiful or brilliant to hold him in lifelong allegiance, if she
but possess this magnetism.
Madame Recamier was a beautiful, but not a brilliant woman, yet she
held men her slaves for years. To know her was to fall under her charm,
and to feel it once was to remain her adorer for life. She will go down to
history as the type of a fascinating woman. Being asked once by an
acquaintance what spell she worked on mankind that enabled her to hold
them for ever at her feet, she laughingly answered:
"I have always found two words sufficient. When a visitor comes into
my salon, I say, 'ENFIN!' and when he gets up to go away, I say, 'DEJA!' "
"What is this wonderful 'charm' he is writing about?" I hear some
sprightly maiden inquire as she reads these lines. My dear young lady, if
you ask the question, you have judged yourself and been found wanting.
But to satisfy you as far as I can, I will try and define it - not by telling you
what it is; that is beyond my power - but by negatives, the only way in
which subtle subjects can be approached.
A woman of charm is never flustered and never DISTRAITE. She
talks little, and rarely of herself, remembering that bores are persons who
insist on talking about themselves. She does not break the thread of a
conversation by irrelevant questions or confabulate in an undertone with
Worldly Ways and Byways
8
the servants. No one of her guests receives more of her attention than
another and none are neglected. She offers to each one who speaks the
homage of her entire attention. She never makes an effort to be brilliant or
entertain with her wit. She is far too clever for that. Neither does she
volunteer information nor converse about her troubles or her ailments, nor
wander off into details about people you do not know.
She is all things - to each man she likes, in the best sense of that phrase,
appreciating his qualities, stimulating him to better things.
- for his gayer hours She has a voice of gladness and a smile and
eloquence of beauty; and she glides Into his darker musings with a mild
and healing sympathy that steals away Their sharpness ere he is aware.
Worldly Ways and Byways
9
CHAPTER 2 - The Moth and the
Star
THE truth of the saying that "it is always the unexpected that
happens," receives in this country a confirmation from an unlooked- for
quarter, as does the fact of human nature being always, discouragingly, the
same in spite of varied surroundings. This sounds like a paradox, but is an
exceedingly simple statement easily proved.
That the great mass of Americans, drawn as they are from such varied
sources, should take any interest in the comings and goings or social
doings of a small set of wealthy and fashionable people, is certainly an
unexpected development. That to read of the amusements and home life of
a clique of people with whom they have little in common, whose whole
education and point of view are different from their own, and whom they
have rarely seen and never expect to meet, should afford the average
citizen any amusement seems little short of impossible.
One accepts as a natural sequence that abroad (where an hereditary
nobility have ruled for centuries, and accustomed the people to look up to
them as the visible embodiment of all that is splendid and unattainable in
life) such interest should exist. That the home-coming of an English or
French nobleman to his estates should excite the enthusiasm of hundreds
more or less dependent upon him for their amusement or more material
advantages; that his marriage to an heiress - meaning to them the re-
opening of a long-closed CHATEAU and the beginning of a period of
prosperity for the district - should excite his neighbors is not to be
wondered at.
It is well known that whole regions have been made prosperous by the
residence of a court, witness the wealth and trade brought into Scotland by
the Queen's preference for "the Land of Cakes," and the discontent and
poverty in Ireland from absenteeism and persistent avoidance of that
country by the court. But in this land, where every reason for interesting
one class in another seems lacking, that thousands of well-to-do people
(half the time not born in this hemisphere), should delightedly devour
Worldly Ways and Byways
10
columns of incorrect information about New York dances and Lenox
house-parties, winter cruises, or Newport coaching parades, strikes the
observer as the "unexpected" in its purest form.
That this interest exists is absolutely certain. During a trip in the West,
some seasons ago, I was dumbfounded to find that the members of a
certain New York set were familiarly spoken of by their first names, and
was assailed with all sorts of eager questions when it was discovered that I
knew them. A certain young lady, at that time a belle in New York, was
currently called SALLY, and a well-known sportsman FRED, by
thousands of people who had never seen either of them. It seems
impossible, does it not? Let us look a little closer into the reason of this
interest, and we shall find how simple is the apparent paradox.
Perhaps in no country, in all the world, do the immense middle classes
lead such uninteresting lives, and have such limited resources at their
disposal for amusement or the passing of leisure hours. Abroad the
military bands play constantly in the public parks; the museums and
palaces are always open wherein to pass rainy Sunday afternoons; every
village has its religious FETES and local fair, attended with dancing and
games. All these mental relaxations are lacking in our newer civilization;
life is stripped of everything that is not distinctly practical; the dull round
of weekly toil is only broken by the duller idleness of an American Sunday.
Naturally, these people long for something outside of themselves and their
narrow sphere.
Suddenly there arises a class whose wealth permits them to break
through the iron circle of work and boredom, who do picturesque and
delightful things, which appeal directly to the imagination; they build a
summer residence complete, in six weeks, with furniture and bric-a-brac,
on the top of a roadless mountain; they sail in fairylike yachts to summer
seas, and marry their daughters to the heirs of ducal houses; they float up
the Nile in dahabeeyah, or pass the "month of flowers" in far Japan.
It is but human nature to delight in reading of these things. Here the
great mass of the people find (and eagerly seize on), the element of
romance lacking in their lives, infinitely more enthralling than the doings
of any novel's heroine. It is real! It is taking place! and - still deeper reason
摘要：
展开>>
收起<<
WorldlyWaysandByways1WorldlyWaysandBywaysEliotGregoryWorldlyWaysandByways2TotheReaderTHEREexistedformerly,indiplomaticcircles,acuriouscustom,sincefallenintodisuse,entitledthePeleMele,contriveddoubtlessbysomedistractedMasterofCeremoniestoquelltheendlessjealousiesandquarrelsforprecedencebetweencourtie...
声明：本站为文档C2C交易模式，即用户上传的文档直接被用户下载，本站只是中间服务平台，本站所有文档下载所得的收益归上传人(含作者)所有。玖贝云文库仅提供信息存储空间，仅对用户上传内容的表现方式做保护处理，对上载内容本身不做任何修改或编辑。若文档所含内容侵犯了您的版权或隐私，请立即通知玖贝云文库，我们立即给予删除！
相关推荐
-
架构演进：小米的经验分享VIP免费
2025-03-31 5 -
Massive particle interferometry with lattice solitons Piero Naldesi1Juan Polo2Peter D Drummond3Vanja Dunjko4Luigi Amico2Anna Minguzzi5and Maxim Olshanii4 1Université Grenoble-Alpes LPMMC F-38000 Grenoble
2025-05-02 0 -
Averaged Solar Torque Rotational Dynamics for Defunct Satellites Conor J. Bensonand Daniel J. Scheeres
2025-05-02 0 -
Preprint MASS M ULTI -ATTRIBUTE SELECTIVE SUPPRESSION Chun-Fu Richard Chen1 Shaohan Hu1 Zhonghao Shi12 Prateek Gulati13
2025-05-02 0 -
Preprint IN-CONTEXT REINFORCEMENT LEARNING WITH ALGORITHM DISTILLATION
2025-05-02 0 -
Portfolio optimization with discrete simulated annealing Álvaro Rubio-García1Juan José García-Ripoll1and Diego Porras1 1Instituto de Física Fundamental IFF-CSIC Serrano 113 28006 Madrid Spain
2025-05-02 1 -
Polynomial Equations Theory and Practice Simon Telen Abstract Solvingpolynomialequationsisasubtaskofpolynomialoptimization.This
2025-05-02 0 -
Polarization Spectroscopy of High-Order Harmonic Generation in Gallium Arsenide SHATHA KAASSAMANI1 THIERRY AUGUSTE1 NICOLAS
2025-05-02 0 -
Phase diagrams of lattice models on Cayley tree and chandelier network a review
2025-05-02 3 -
Performance of Quantum Preprocessing under Phase Noise Zuhra Amiri Boulat A. Bashy Janis N otzel
2025-05-02 1
分类：外语学习
价格：5.9玖币
属性：183 页
大小：649.31KB
格式：PDF
时间：2024-12-25
相关内容
-
Portfolio optimization with discrete simulated annealing Álvaro Rubio-García1Juan José García-Ripoll1and Diego Porras1 1Instituto de Física Fundamental IFF-CSIC Serrano 113 28006 Madrid Spain
分类：图书资源
时间：2025-05-02
标签：无
格式：PDF
价格：10 玖币
-
Polynomial Equations Theory and Practice Simon Telen Abstract Solvingpolynomialequationsisasubtaskofpolynomialoptimization.This
分类：图书资源
时间：2025-05-02
标签：无
格式：PDF
价格：10 玖币
-
Polarization Spectroscopy of High-Order Harmonic Generation in Gallium Arsenide SHATHA KAASSAMANI1 THIERRY AUGUSTE1 NICOLAS
分类：图书资源
时间：2025-05-02
标签：无
格式：PDF
价格：10 玖币
-
Phase diagrams of lattice models on Cayley tree and chandelier network a review
分类：图书资源
时间：2025-05-02
标签：无
格式：PDF
价格：10 玖币
-
Performance of Quantum Preprocessing under Phase Noise Zuhra Amiri Boulat A. Bashy Janis N otzel
分类：图书资源
时间：2025-05-02
标签：无
格式：PDF
价格：10 玖币
渝公网安备50010702506394
