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


The Boy OF the Period.
He is sort of asteroid in the social sys-
tenn. He and his kind move in widely
elliptic orbits Of large inclination, cutting
society at certain modal points like those
hundred and odd vagrant Jumps of cosmic
matter that if put together would hardly
make up the mass of O respectable planet
Perhaps, equally like them, he may serve to
demonstrate some yet to be discovered Bo-
dean law ruling the little universe of which
he forms so numerous yet so trivial part.
Perhaps he may have use, as all things
have; but then the designs of Heaven are
lnscrutable, and not to be found out by
searching. He is boy of the period, but
not the boy of the period, for, unlike the
periodic girl, whose generic and specific
types have been somewhat ungenerously de-
termined in the able monograph of the
Saturday Recie,c, the boy is protean and be-
longs to class rather than to species.
mere make weight, like printers leads
that serve to space out the leading article
more prominently, that high distinction
being reserved for the society boy, and un-
hesitatingly accepted by him. The society
make-weight is not always such by virtue of
brains, wealth, or family, weak and mate
gentility of dress and manner being about
all that is wanted to separate him from the
herd that lies huddled together one grade
lower. He is manifestly q step above the
urbane shop p-keeper, and, as things go with
us, equally removed, contrary-w from
the fast young man who inherits we'll
crammed deed-box. He is most frequently
professional, and of professional ancestry
His college course, by mixing him with
young men of money, gives him his first
insight into that complex and unsocial
scheme misnamed society, in which it is
speedily his aim to revolve, although insig-
nificant, in any orbital lacuna that NAV be
open to him. He dances, aud this enables
him to fill up q German" in fact, dancing
well is about half his social capital He can
talk, if not brilliantly, at least intellieibly,
and this brings him into demand to help fiji
aparlor, and perhaps save from wall flower
ship some poor thing around whom the cold
blasts that hurtle in the zone the wrong side
of thirty have blown roughly. He is not
always fortunate enough to loll in the tro-
picai luxnriance Of society in its teens, for
he is generally understood not to be a mar
rying man-his means being limited. This
keeps the social make-weight out of the two
extremes of model domesticity and model
viciousness in, Questionable way. With him
CHEEKY wife and o fast nag, costly club
and chubby curly-pate to fondle on his
knee, are equally remote objects of ambition.
He woiild be dissipated' If he could-but
how? Wanting the wherewithal to do so.
he makes virtue Of his fate, limits himself
to billiards and segars, and licks up the
crumbs that fall from the social table with
uncomfortable lack Otto use q humble
word-spunk. And SO he drifts along, gra-
dually developing q cynical turn toward the
girl of the period, and is notably eloquent
on her extravaganza and unfitness for wife
hood, meaning, Of course, unftness to bo
the mate of such as himself. Yet he sees
the girl of the period at her best, and she
charms him in the direct ratio to her extra.
vagance and wifely unftness. Her parors
are open to him, her dress and jewelry as
coqEettishly worn for him as for nobler
quarry, her mamma tolerates him more per-
hsps than if he were young Van Dollah or
Foozleoyle, the whiskyist, and her papa be-
Heves in his entire innocuousness, extends
the pudgy grasp of friendship, and at odd
times patronizes him by buying his freshly
daubed canvas or sending him hopeless
note for collection. He endures all this
without wincing, for the breath Of society
has become vital in his nostrils. He is some
what refined, even little of q Sybarite; SO
what wonder that he takes kindly to women
who speak low and dress with an eye to har-
mony OF color; who waltz ethereaily and
are at their ease with him because there is
no necessity of keeping him at arm'slength.
He blooms out of an evening-not in q
flaming way, for your makeweieht knows
the value of moderation in dress and ties
and bosom -studs-and enioys EASY chairs
and softened lights and dainty voices and
all the other alurements of company parlors