The daily phoenix. [volume] (Columbia, S.C.) 1865-1878, 1869-04-21

! to the full as much as their owners, and pays
therefor in small talk and general usefulness.
And his reward comes whom he receives
some thick aud creamy card of sinvitation to
all the tingling delights of crash floor cloths
and Strauss music and gldces ndpolitaines,
and chairs knotted lovingly in pairs with
the filmiest of handkerchiefs-six hours of
society and bliss. He is not domestic ami
NAL. How can you expect it of him in his
hall bedroom in Mrs. Myers fashionable
brown stone mansion in Thirty 'leventh
street, not stones throw from his loved
avenue? He sleeps therein and dresses
therein-it is chilly and fireless at times
and gets out of it rs soon as he can. His
| waking hours auctuate between the studio
or ofice-desk and society; but in the rarer
event of his being, in small way, person
of leisure, his time is wholly given to the
one ambition of his life. On Sunday, you
may see him before some stylish church,
blandly facing the utcoming congregation,
with natty gloves and fuultless lappels, and
q figure just gently limiting an underlying
corsage, himself l'leasing himself, until his
smile meets a XII lrc, smile and two radiant
beings drift alur, with the current of socie-
ty, snluting and saluted, each conscious at
heart-if they would but take the trouble 10
think it out-that there is nothing in it,
that their intercourse is sham, burlesque
on the true relations of life.
The same couple are not soon seen toge-
ther again-this phase of the society man
being eminently impartial in his attentions
to the SEX He cannot lead in any one set
so he must needs move over limited area
in several circles. In this connection an
other aspect of the social makeweight's
character looms up; he is vain of the large
ness of his social acquaintance-his New
Years list is far in the hundreds, with deni-
zens of the talismanic avenue numerously
represented, his evenings are pre-engaged
for weeks. and by his own showing no man
is harder worked than he or more relieved
by the coming of the Lenten season. He
has many acquaintances though few friends,
and his condolences are apt to be with the
other sex. In fine, as one who would de-
scribe a gem by its facets must at last call it
by its name, to the specification Of an ave-
rage second-rate society man must be re-
duced to this-that he is nothing more nor
less than what he is-a society makeweight.
But one of the saddest thoughts growing
out of this examination is the question that
must inevitably rise in every thinking mind
what becomes of all the makeweigths? 1t
is analogous to the old query about the
pins, and equally incapable of answer. Does
he ever grow old? Does he ever marry,
and, if so in what sphere? Does he ever
accomplish any useful purpose in life beside
being gentleman, or something very like
it, by virtue of his gentility? Who ever
heard of him as any other than society
man? He and his cengeners are numbered
among us by thousands; their faces grow
familiar to us night after night in the
German" they jam Che academy at the
charity ball. they fling occasional bouquets
to the blonde sirens of the stage, and after
decade or SO of this sort of thing they are
not! They hang on to society's skirts for a
time, partaking of its dizzing whirl without
aiding it, till at length the tired hands re-
lax their hold, and the society makeweight
drops off into obscurity, perchance that of
cheerless old bachelorhood of drudgery,
perchance that of growing family and
slatternly household in some suburb with
it's attendant railway agonies, perchance n
dictatorship in q life assurance scheme, per-
chance into politics. The consolation is
that he is never missed. That society for
which, in truly touching and unsparing
devotion, he has given up all, sweeps on its
way and sees him no more.-Round Table.