Nashville union and American. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1868-1875, 1875-04-25

interest to people capable Of wasting ttei
time over such stuff. The Marigolds, o.
course, are delighted and astOnished thai
any reference to the party could have GOT
into the newspapers They cannot under.
stand how it happened, but they venture
the assertion that in these days nothing es.
capes the press, and that movement in
fashionable society will be seized on.
sYCOPHANTIC PENNY-A-LISERs.
The next thingis to form the acquaintance
Of some ofthe persons-they are Of both
sexes-WhO do the ~sycOphantic penny-a-
lining. Nothing easier. They are won
drously accessible. 1t is the study Of their
life to be introduced to people who give
dinners, parties, receptions and Germans.
They are not exactly Of the sort that one
would be DESTROYS to know; for they are
weak, sycophantic, cringing. But they are
useful, desirable, withal, when one has
daughters to advertise for the matrimonial
market OF when one is ambitious to have
an inventory Of his household goods put
in print.
Mr., Miss, or Mrs. jenkins, as the case
may be, is invited to the Marigolds'; Ger
tain attentions are shown in connection
with wardrobes and furniture, and Jenkins
is secured, while he or she can keep a jour
nalistic connection. HencefOTth, the Mari
Colds ceaselessly study the society column
Of the gossiping newspapers. Miss Mamie,
and what she had on, is always reported.
The public is informed how she was dress
ed at the charity or infant asylum ball; that
she is spending a few weeks with friends
in Boston or Baltimore; that she looked
lovely at the opera, the first night Of "Ruy
Bias" or the last night Of "LOhengrin;"
that she IS to spend next summer at Long
Branch, o. in the White mountains; that
she is going abroad in the sp:ing that, last
winter, she was one Of the most admired of
the American beauties in Rome; that the
Emperor William, when she was driving
in the Tiergarten at Berlin, sent one of his
aids to inquire who that lovely foreigner
was, with other drivel and balderdash to
the same effect.
THE MARVELLOUS M~ARIGOLDs.
BY dint Of iteration, many UnsOphiSti-
Gated persons get an idea that the Mari
colds represent the best society Of New
York Cheaven help New YOrkif they didl),
and that Miss Mamie must be a bewitch-
ing creature indeed. They never suspect
that the head of the mu~ch-bepuffed family
has little but money to recommend him.
He had some good sense when he came
here, but his wife and daughter have
driven il out Of his head. He made a for
tune by advance of land in the West, and
was urged by his spouse to move TO the
metropolis, and set up to be fashionable.
Mrs. MarigOld nOw points with pride to
the position they have secured, and the
social fame they enjoy.
What is this position, what is this fame?
They have in their circle persons just like
themselves-materially well of, perhaps,
but ill~educated, ~pretenttous, and sadly
lacking in tact and refinement. They have
not touched, and never will touch, the out
ermost hem Of the garments of good so
eiety. They can 60 wherever money can
buy their Way-Wherever it won't they
must stay at home. They do not feel what
vulgar humbugs they are. A great many
families, they say, that hold their heads
very high, are never mentioned in the
newspapers; and nobody can be genteel or
fashionable whose parties and movements
are not chronicled.
MISS MAMIE.
Is Miss Mamie really bewitching? That
depends. She is in robust health; her hair
and eyes and complexion are not bad. She
has not the least claim TO beauty, however,
and the impression she gives is one Of IN
questionable vulgarity. By a wise prOvis
ion of nature, brains are left cut of her
composition; her English is faulty, and
her French is of the kind that is spoken
with such purity at Denver and Cheyenne.
She is deplOrably ignorant in regard to
dress. She wears a great many clothes,
and wears them all i'll. A vast improve
ment on her mother, she might be a vast
Improvement on herself, and still be a long
distance from the garden in which g~entility
grows.
HER MARRIAGE.
By and by she will succeed in getting
married. The chances are even that her
husband will prove either a vulgarian or
an neutrality-suspicious. both. If he be
only rich, her dear mamma Git is the Gus
tom here for vulgar girls to call their
mothers mamma) will be entirely indifer-
ent to any other defects.
He may steal Nannie's jewelry and gam
bic it away; he may treat her like abrute;
he may desert her, to escape his creditors,
and geJ rid Of her insipidity. She may re-
turn home, obtain a divorce, and hope for
better luck next time. These things will
not please Mrs. MarigOld, nor Mr.. MarigOld
either, but they will comfort themselves
with the recollection that Mamie has been
a New York belle. They will read the ex-
tracts from the goSsipping papers, carefully
pasted in a scTap-bOOE, TO assure them
selves that there can be no mistake about
that fact.
A number Of the bellies OF this city are
ANNIE MARIGOLDs WITT VALUATIONS.
They have won their doubtful positions
in substantially the same way. They have
created themselves, and their creation is a
botch. Many Of them do not look IS well
as she, and on what they base their pre-
tense to bellehoOd would puzzle MephistO-
pheles to ferret put. Of the hundreds Of
bellies on Manhattan Island, to-day, not
in twenty could offer her person as a letter
Of recommendation.
have IN my mind a long list Of these
would-be charmers, and a goodly proper
ton are satires on their assumptions. You
NAV expect to find them inane, frivolous,
stereOtyped, grotesquely ~conceited. But
YOU have hope that they shall be comely,
graceful, Well-dreSsed. Sometimes they
are; Oftener they are not. Not a few are
unequivOcally ugly, and render their ugli-
ness conspicuous by dOnning clothes and
ornaments not a whit becoming.
If all the women who pretend TO be bellies
here were placed on exhibition, their aver
ace grace and beauty would be below me-
diocrty. A number Of them are lovely,
elegant and interesting; but it will be OBJ
served that they make the least claim, and,
compared to the mass, stand in the back
ground.